


Love's Not Time's Fool

by wren_kt7oz



Category: Queer as Folk (US)
Genre: Halloween, M/M, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-17
Updated: 2015-02-17
Packaged: 2018-03-13 10:37:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3378407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wren_kt7oz/pseuds/wren_kt7oz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's really hard to summarise this one.   It's either a trilogy or a fic with three longish chapters.</p><p>The first part is a Halloween fic.  The second is a Thanksgiving fic.  The third is a Valentine's Day fic.</p><p> Overall, it's an AU in which Brian and Justin never met.  When the trilogy starts, Brian is in his sixties and Justin is a ghost.  </p><p>The first segment deals with what happens when Brian retires and decides to move into a mansion so far from Pittsburgh that it's like it's in West Virginia; a mansion that happens to have a resident ghost.</p><p>In the second chapter, Gus arrives to talk to the father he hardly knows about his future.</p><p>The third section starts with Brian's death.  Will his spirit find its way to Justin's?</p><p>Personally, I find this one of the most ridiculously romantic fics I've written.  Try it, you might surprise yourself by liking it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Love's Not Time's Fool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This first segment is a Halloween fic. Justin is, after all, a ghost. 
> 
> It's just much more romantic than scary. Well, as romantic as Brian will allow a story to be, any way.

When Brian Kinney retired, he withdrew from the world; and the world barely noticed.

Most of his friends had moved away. Or died.

Brian's birth family he'd abandoned years ago. His father and mother had both died before he'd turned forty; his sister had followed not long after and her sons, his nephews, Brian wouldn't have recognized if he'd passed them in the street. He had no idea (and less interest) if either of them had ever spawned.

Brian's closest friend Michael, the almost-brother he'd known since his teen years, had out-lived his beloved husband Ben by only a few years; he'd just seemed to fade away, stripped of the will to live once Ben had died. Michael's mother, Debbie, the closest thing Brian had ever had to a Mom was long gone, along with her husband Carl. Michael's adopted son had found living in Pittsburgh too hard after Michael went, so Hunter had moved to Philadelphia, where he'd gone to college. Brian hadn't seen him since.

Ted, the man who had started out as the butt of many of Brian's barbed jokes yet had over the years become his most trusted confidant as well as his business partner, had retired a few years back and moved to Palm Springs. Emmett, the flamboyant queen who had for years been the fourth member of their little group (back in the days before love and fatherhood and the responsibilities that come with success had forced them out of their prolonged adolescence) had moved his party planning business to the West Coast years ago, and was still The Name behind any significant Hollywood event.

Lindsay, the mother of Brian's child, had moved long ago to Canada. His son had grown up there, hardly knowing his father except as a remote figure who could, apparently, be relied upon to cough up money whenever it was needed (Gus had managed three overseas school trips thanks to his Dad's generosity) but was rarely heard from and hardly ever seen.

So outside of the business world, there wasn't really anyone to notice that when Brian moved into the huge mansion in West Virginia he basically stopped seeing anybody except the couple who looked after the house and grounds. Even they didn't actually see him all that often.

They had their own small cottage in a corner of the estate. Jorges, who did the gardening, hardly ever entered the house and saw only the odd glimpse of his employer through the windows, or on the rare occasions when Brian would venture out to enjoy the gardens that he paid so much to maintain. Albrecht, who did the cooking and most of the house-cleaning, knew Mr. Kinney's habits and would do his best to work around them. He would clean the bedroom and other upstairs rooms in the morning while Brian swam or worked out in the pool area; and then clean all the lower part of the house in the afternoons while Brian spent long hours in the room across the hall from the master bedroom; the one with the huge windows that Mr. Kinney for some reason always referred to as "the studio". Sometimes Albrecht couldn't help wondering what Mr. Kinney did in there for hours upon hours every day. He'd had a whole batch of artist's equipment installed in the room only a week or so after he'd moved in, but he never seemed to use it. Maybe he read or went online, caught up with the news; Albrecht was never sure. Sometimes Albrecht was prepared to swear he heard voices from that room, so perhaps Mr. Kinney used the entertainment system which had outlets in many rooms and could be accessed from any of them using the remotes.

Meals, Albrecht would prepare and would leave on the dining room table, using the "alert" system that was also installed through the house to notify Mr. Kinney when they were ready. Sometimes they would be eaten, sometimes not.

Except for dinner. At the same time as he'd brought in the easels and painting racks and other things for the painting he never seemed to do, Mr. Kinney had had the small room next to the studio converted into a second, more intimate, eating area; and he'd had a "dumb waiter" installed, so Albrecht would send dinner up to him using the dumb waiter.

Those meals were nearly always eaten. In fact, sometimes it seemed to Albrecht that in the evening Mr. Kinney ate almost enough for two. But if he over-indulged a little, the results didn't show.

Despite having turned sixty, Mr. Kinney was still an attractive man - tall, slim, dark hair lightly touched with grey, and the most amazing hazel eyes – sometimes dark as muddy peat, sometimes almost green; but always deep and beautiful and somehow disconcertingly gentle for a man who had a reputation as a total shark in business. He'd had another reputation too, once upon a time. Even now mention of his name among the older members of Pittsburgh's gay community brought a reminiscent gleam into their eyes – especially if they'd been one of the lucky ones to have earned his attention, however briefly. Jorges and Albrecht volunteered at the GLC on a regular basis, and they'd heard the stories that the older men were happy to share; the couple had agreed from the beginning that if Mr. Kinney wanted a little … companionship … from either or both of them, that it would not be an intolerable hardship to give it to him. Not that Mr. Kinney had ever asked.

When he'd first come to live full time at the house, he'd had regular visits from a very beautiful (and discreet) young man who had come to the house two afternoons a week.

But after around a month those visits had stopped. Albrecht and Jorges thought that there might have been some kind of altercation because the day after the last visit when Albrecht had gone into the studio room to clean he'd found broken glass all over the floor. He'd never worked out where the glass had come from, or what it had contained, but the contents must have been a strange vivid green. They had actually stained a small portion of the polished boards. Albrecht had been almost afraid to tell Mr. Kinney, but when he'd finally plucked up the courage and taken him upstairs to show him, Mr. Kinney had just gotten this strange little smile, almost a smirk, on his face and had told him not to worry about it.

The stain was still there. Once Albrecht had tried to cover it with a rug, but he'd found the rug tumbled against the wall the next morning, as if it had been thrown there; and he'd never dared to put it back.

So this was how Brian Kinney lived, once he'd retired from running his incredibly successful chain of businesses – severely alone, barely seeing another living being from one week's end to the next.

Albrecht and Jorges thought it was an incredible shame that someone as beautiful as Mr. Kinney must have been had never apparently found anyone to share his life with. They agreed that such deep loneliness wasn't good for anyone. It was a wonder, they said to each other, that it didn't drive Mr. Kinney completely mad, being all alone in that big house.

*****

Brian Kinney sometimes wondered if he was completely insane.

Sitting in his favorite chair, watching the blond young artist practically throw paint that both did and didn't exist at a canvas that was both blank and vividly colored, he thought that he must be. But then the beautiful blond would turn and smile at him and he'd decide again, for about the millionth time, that he just didn't care.

It was ridiculous, and crazy, and totally typical of his whole fucked up life that at sixty something he'd fallen in love for the first time in his life; and not only was the "object of his affection" more than forty years younger than him, he was a damned ghost.

In fact, he'd been a ghost for over thirty years.

Hell! even if they'd met when the fucking kid was still alive there would have been nearly twelve years difference in their ages. It still would have been … Well, no matter. It would never have happened. His beautiful ghost had been a well-brought up WASP boy who would never have found himself anywhere near the orbit of the big bad wolf that Brian remembered himself being at around 30.

In any case there was absolutely no fucking point in dwelling on "what ifs". He hadn't met the kid back then. He'd met him now, when he was just about at the end of his life. Brian didn't need any doctor to tell him that with his medical history and his bad habits, not to mention his whole fucking genetic makeup, he wasn't likely to make "old bones" as his almost forgotten grandmother would have said; certainly not as old as most people with his kind of wealth did in this age of readily available medical miracles - well, if not miracles, then preventions and cures that were readily available to the very wealthy at least. And Brian was very, very wealthy.

Sometimes, lying awake at night, supposedly alone in his bed – he never had slept much, and as he got older his insomnia had actually worsened – Brian would wonder just how this whole fucking crazy thing had started.

It hadn't been until a little while after he'd moved in that he'd actually "met" the ghost, as it were.

But he supposed it had really started the day that he'd first seen the house.

It had been a bleak winter's day, about two years ago, and he'd been cursing himself for even thinking about travelling all the fucking way to West Virginia to look at some lame-assed mansion. It's not like he'd had any ambition at all to buy a place like that. He was an urban-ite through and through. He'd had no idea why he'd let the estate agent talk him into even looking at it.

What he should have been doing was looking for a place down south somewhere. Somewhere warm, where he could get away from Pittsburgh's winters.

Ted had just moved down to Palm Springs and had co-erced Brian into a visit for his "house-warming" party. It had been pleasant enough there, he supposed. Warmer than Pennsylvania, that was for fucking certain. But the problem was the place was full of other fucking old people who'd retired down there to get away from the snow in Chicago or Boston or even Portland.

Well, okay, there had been some hot young talent around. Brian might be too old to hit the clubs any more but he still enjoyed looking. And he had money enough to be able to pay for discreet services as often as he felt inclined. His pride found such an arrangement far more acceptable than either risking rejection or settling for less than his former standards.

But overall his trip to Palm Springs had felt flat to him. It hadn't come close to convincing him that his future lay in the warm south. Instead, he'd sent out feelers to a couple of real estate firms and for some reason one of them had sent photos of this huge fucking mansion in the wilds of West Virginia. He'd almost dismissed it out of hand, but something …

Well, whatever …

He'd found himself next day on the phone to the agent and that had resulted in a drive, through a gentle snow fall, to the house.

Brian remembered the curve of the drive and the way the house had seemed to call to him. Not that he'd admitted that to himself at the time. At the time he'd told himself that he liked the classical lines of it, and that after the sense of crowding that he'd felt in Palm Springs, and that he was beginning to feel in Pittsburgh if the truth were known, he liked the sense of space.

The main room downstairs with its open fireplace had given him the shivers for some reason. But upstairs he'd found a room … high ceilings and floor to ceiling windows – that had, even on that cold, grey day, seemed warm and full of sunlight. He'd felt instantly as if he'd come home to some place that he loved. And he'd felt as if … well, no matter. It had just made him feel … happy, or some shit.

If the truth were known he'd pretty much bought the house just so he could come back to that room.

Mind you, it had taken a while for all the pieces to fall into place.

To start with, the house had been empty for years. A couple of times it had come close to being sold, but something had always gone wrong at the last minute. Nothing had gone wrong this time, however, and the sale had gone through smoothly, but having been empty for so long, the place had needed a lot of work, so that was one reason why it had taken a while for him to actually move in.

Plus, extricating himself from the day to day running of his range of businesses had not been as simple as just switching off his communications units. He'd built up his not so little empire from nothing purely with his own brains and drive and nerve (and, okay, with a modicum of assistance from Theodore whose finesse with the finances might have helped a little). If the only thing he could ever really do for his son was to hand that empire on to him, then Gus wasn't going to inherit a shit load of problems if Brian could work out ways to prevent them. Key positions had to be reviewed, strategies and fail safes put in place. He had to be confident that things would hang together long enough to allow Gus time to decide whether he wanted to take the reins himself, or let the businesses run themselves and just rake in their earnings.

But eventually, one grey day in what should have been spring, everything had been done, finalized, signed on a myriad of dotted lines and he'd driven once more out to the house and had entered it, feeling almost torn between a sense of intense anticipation and a deep nervousness about what he was going to find there.

He couldn't have said what it was he expected. Let alone what he secretly, in some deep part of his heart hidden even from himself, hoped for. He just knew that something had … wanted him to move in to that house. And it had made him want it too.

So when he'd first entered the hallway, and looked around he'd felt … not disappointment, but a sense of anti-climax. The house was okay. The designer and renovator had done a great job in the short time he'd given them. It had looked good and would be comfortable enough, but there was nothing that …

The house, to his eyes, had seemed as palely grey as the day outside.

Oh well, he'd figured at that point. I can always sell it again.

He'd spoken briefly to the two men that he'd hired to look after the place – and look after him, he supposed. At least to the extent of keeping him fed out here where from his extensive range of take out menus wouldn't be much use to him.

He'd agreed on a dinner menu and then had gone upstairs to his bedroom to check that all his clothes had arrived safely and had been properly hung or folded with the care due to their pedigree. A little to his surprise he hadn't been able to fault the way they'd been looked after. For the first, but definitely not the last, time he congratulated himself on making such a good choice in his staff. It took a queen to understand a label queen's needs where his clothing was concerned.

Satisfied that all was well in his wardrobe he'd removed his Prada boots and traded his Armani for an old soft pair of jeans and a black shirt then he'd wandered along the upper hallway till he came to the big room he remembered from that brief first visit.

He'd found his heart pounding for some reason as he opened the door; if this room didn't live up to his memories of it he might as well sell the house now.

For just a moment as he'd stood on the threshold he'd been aware of bitter disappointment as the room had appeared in the fading daylight to be bleak and cold.

But then, almost as if a switch had been flicked, suddenly it had seemed once more filled with that warm golden light he'd remembered so well. Looking back now, he remembered stepping inside the room and feeling as if … as if he'd been greeted by someone who had been waiting for him for a long time. More, someone that he'd been waiting to … come home to … for a long time.

It was totally fucking ridiculous!

He'd thought that then, and he still thought it now.

But it hadn't _**felt**_ ridiculous.

It had felt like blinding, unvarnished truth.

*****

Justin Taylor had been dead for over six months when he found the house.

He'd died in a "robbery gone wrong" according to the police records, and his killer had never been identified.

Actually, he'd been beaten to death with a baseball bat as he walked to his car after a night class at the community college that had been his only educational option when his father had thrown him out not long after his eighteenth birthday. If the police had in any way been interested, they would have checked up on one Christopher Hobbs, who'd attacked Justin a few years earlier on the night of their Senior Prom. But with a bigot named Stockwell in the Mayor's office, and a like-minded old buddy appointed as head of the city's police department, there was no way that any time was going to be spent investigating the death of another fag. One less to pollute Stockwell's "family friendly" city was the way City Hall had looked at it.

So Chris Hobbs who, having found that Justin was living not far from his latest girlfriend's place had first taken to harassing him in the street, then to trying to blackmail him into giving him the odd blow job, and when neither of those had worked, he'd decided to take out his frustrations and fears using yet another baseball bat. This time he'd been successful.

Justin didn't really remember much about it, fortunately. Or rather, he remembered, but it seemed like a story that had happened to someone else.

Even of those few months immediately after his death, he had only a few scattered memories. All he'd seemed to do was to drift, endlessly, with no real sense of his surroundings; everything had seemed grey and formless and all he'd been conscious of were loneliness and cold.

But after months of this lonely nothingness suddenly, with shocking abruptness, the house stood out, vivid against the indeterminate grey of the indistinct fog that surrounded him at all times.

He'd never seen the house before he was sure, and yet somehow it was familiar.

He knew this house. He had been … or was … or could be … happy in this house.

For the first time in his drifting, he had a target, and he prepared for a struggle to direct his drifting towards that place.

But it wasn't a struggle at all. As soon as he willed himself to move that way, he was there, standing at the gate.

With visions of all the ghost stories he'd ever heard going through his mind, Justin attempted to simply pass through the fence – assuming that the physical barrier would be no barrier to him.

To his surprise, he wasn't unable to do so. He was stopped as surely as if he'd attempted to run through the physical fence back when he was still alive. He hadn't crashed into the fence, it wasn't quite like touching, there was no sense of actual contact. There was just … resistance. As if he'd come up against an intangible force field.

That gave him pause. In his dream-like drifting, he hadn't had to interact with anything from the physical world before and he was at a loss how to do so now.

He found himself sort of leaning on the gate looking yearningly at the house, longing to be able to see inside, when abruptly he was standing in the hallway and looking up the stairs. He tried walking up and found it difficult to exactly direct his movements; but when he simply thought of being at the top, there he was.

He got distracted a little then from actually exploring the house while he practiced this amazing new form of locomotion. Look at the garden and want to smell the roses – zip, nose right in the rose bush; look back at the house and think about looking out of the topmost window – zip, a moment of vertigo where he went suddenly from looking up to looking down. It was a lot of fun. But he realized that practicing a movement more like walking was, in fact, a better way of moving around the house itself; at least it was if he wanted to actually have a chance to take in the house properly.

He loved what he found; especially the big upstairs room with the floor to ceiling windows that captured all the afternoon light. It cried out to his artist's soul. He longed to be able to draw and paint and create in that room.

But for the longest time all he could do was aimlessly wander the corridors. Sometimes the house was lived in, mainly it was not. It didn't seem to Justin to make much difference. None of the occupants seemed to sense his presence; and their presence hardly affected him. He neither saw nor heard any of the inhabitants, not even vague shapes or outlines; not even the tiniest whisper of sound or flicker of movement; they may as well not have been there. The only way he could sense whether the house was inhabited or not was that sometimes the furniture and possessions changed, or vanished completely. Even when there was furniture, it was grey and misty in contrast to the solid reality of the house.

He remained remote and lonely.

There was only one thing that did affect him during those years and it was something so ephemeral, so strange and so unpredictable that most of the time he thought it was his imagination playing tricks, or the soul deep loneliness of his isolated existence finally getting to him. Every now and again it seemed to him, that the house … changed. He would walk into his favorite room and it would no longer be empty or filled with indeterminate grey shapes – the bric a brac, clutter and detritus of the current inhabitants' lives. On those occasions, when he walked into the room it was filled with easels and paints and brushes and charcoals and racks for drying paintings and racks for stretching canvas and they were not vague grey shapes, they were almost as solid and real to him as the house itself. The only thing he didn't see, never saw, were the paintings themselves. But whenever his aimless drifting took that unexpected twist and he came into _**that**_ room he would immediately feel as if he had finally come home after long travels. In fact, on those occasions the whole house felt more home-like.

Even more strangely, at those times Justin was almost aware of the house's residents. He never actually saw them, but he sometimes he caught the echo of their voices, or a trace of laughter; sometimes even momentary scents and sounds that carried a frisson of passion. The voices sounded male to him, and somehow even those faint echoes seemed always to resound with affection, with love. Justin had no doubt that there were two of them, that they were both men, and that they were lovers.

He was torn between wishing _**that**_ version of the house would appear more frequently and being glad it didn't. Drifting alone in endless solitude was one thing, hovering on the brink of awareness of others but not able to clearly see or hear them, let alone contact them, that was a different kind of torment; it was truly painful. Yet it was somehow comforting too. At least it reminded him that once he'd known love and friendship and companionship. Even if not the kind of love these two clearly shared.

When those strange moments faded and the house resumed its usual aspect, he was even more conscious of his alone-ness.

He wondered about them, of course. Wondered who they were, and how they'd met and whether they'd live in the house before he found it, or whether they lived in it now in some kind of alternate reality that paralleled his own. He couldn't be sure, but it seemed like they'd been living in that other version of the house for a long time. He wished that he could see them, just once. He found that he didn't envy them their togetherness, their love that was obvious even in the traces and echoes that were his only impression of them. He was glad for them; glad that someone had found happiness in this house that was both his refuge and his prison.

He daren't leave the house. The memory of the aimless drifting of that period immediately after his death was truly horrible now that he had at least the walls of the house to orient himself, and to give his existence some kind of context and meaning. If he had to be some kind of ghost, it was better to haunt a house than to just wander endlessly through some entirely featureless grey void. And if he left this house, what if he never found anywhere else and couldn't find his way back here?

No, Justin decided. It was far better to stay here. At least "here' had some meaning. Out "there" was formless and devoid of everything that could even hint at meaning.

*****

This state of affairs went on for … a long time. Justin was aware of time passing, but could not have said how many days or weeks or months or years had gone by.

But then one day the door to the house had opened and for the first time Justin was conscious of someone entering. He was taken aback and not sure what to do. Part of him wanted to hide in the cellar or the attics. He had no idea why. No one had ever seemed to see him, no one had even shown the faintest sign that they were aware of him being around. But something told him this man … he knew it was a man, though he couldn't say how he knew … would be different. That was a scary thought. Different might be good. Or it might not.

But strong as the instinct was to hide, the instinct to seek out this man and see if, for the first time in all these lonely eons since his death, he could make contact with another human being was even stronger. He found himself moving towards _**his**_ room and then, in an instant, he was there, hovering just inside the doorway in amazement.

He could see the man!

At least, he couldn't exactly see him, but he could sense him, see a kind of outline. What some hippy-type would have called his aura, Justin supposed.

Although he didn't think it was exactly that. It was more that he saw the space the man occupied as being different from all other space. As if this man were different from all other men.

He couldn't see features or hair color or clothing, but he could see that the man was tall and slim and that he moved like a man used to commanding attention.

He had Justin's attention all right!

Now if Justin could only get his.

*****

For those first few frustrating days, Justin's attempts to make contact seemed doomed to failure. He tried touching but that didn't work. His hand didn't pass through the guy, it was blocked by the man's body, but there was no sense of touch, and as the man didn't react, Justin had to assume that he didn't feel anything either. He'd even tried walking right through the space the man occupied, but that also failed to achieve any sense of contact.

He tried speaking to him, shouting even. He tried to "think" his way into the man's head, concentrating every essence of his being into the effort to make mental contact, but … nothing. He even tried looming over him as he slept at night, trying to make his way into the man's dreams. But if that was in any way successful, there was no indication of it in the man's behavior.

He was becoming increasingly depressed by these repeated failures and one afternoon, as the man sat at the computer desk he'd installed in Justin's room, completely oblivious to the latest attempt to get his attention, Justin had found himself sinking down onto the chaise longue across the room from the desk in something very like despair.

As he did, two things happened. One was that he found himself actually sitting. For the first time he was actually able to "sit" on a piece of furniture. He realized then what his obsession with making contact with the man had led him to ignore. As it had been in that other version of the house, he could see, could even touch, the furniture. At least, he couldn't exactly touch it, but as with his first experience with the gate of the house, it offered a sort of force-field resistance that allowed him to interact with it in a way; and the result was that he could essentially "sit" on it.

The second, occurring simultaneously, was that the man suddenly said, "Hey, don't fuck with the light, I'm working here!"

Justin jumped up again from the couch in shock.

The man had spoken almost as if he knew that he, Justin, was there.

Or at least that something or someone was.

Justin's heart leaped in hope.

"That's fucking better," the man said approvingly. "I don't know what the fuck you are, but I like it when you bring the sunshine inside for me."

Justin felt tears well up in his eyes and wanted to throw himself at the man's feet in gratitude.

He didn't know what the man meant by the sunshine, but he knew that somehow the man sensed … something. He'd pushed his chair back from the desk, and was looking around the room.

Justin had no idea how it would feel after this long, so lonely, time, to have someone speak to him; to know that someone, anyone, acknowledged just that he existed. It brought a sense of relief, of joy, so profound that he thought his heart might break with it, swell, like the Grinch's, till it was just too big for his non-body to hold.

He crossed the room and kneeling, kissed the man's fingers as they lay relaxed upon his knee. Again, there was that sense, not exactly of touch, but of resistance, of something and, heart thumping, he rested his forehead against the place occupied by the man's thigh.

To his astonishment and bewildered joy, he felt the man's hand clumsily brush across his head.

"Don't cry, Sunshine," the man whispered. "It makes the sunlight go away, and the world's a dark enough fucking place."

And that was how it began.

*****

Later, Brian couldn't remember any precise moment when he'd consciously acknowledged that there was someone in the room with him.

But he supposed it must have happened on or before that afternoon when …

He'd been working on his computer in that upstairs room that always seemed filled with sunlight – even on the greyest day.

What he'd become aware of first was the gradual fading of that light.

But the fading had been accompanied by such a profound sense of sadness, of despair, that it had been almost palpable. And it was a personal sadness, it somehow had, or was attached to, or generated by, a personality. And not his own.

It had brought to the forefront of his mind the sense of … companionship he'd always found in this room, and he'd reacted instinctively, speaking to that "companion".

Typically, his first reaction hadn't been one of comfort but of acerbic protest.

But it had had an instant effect, and the light, the warm golden light he'd grown accustomed to, had returned.

But the feeling … the emotion that he'd felt, hadn't dissipated. It had changed, from sadness to a sort of joyous relief, but it had still been incredibly intense.

For just a moment he could have sworn that something brushed his hand; then that sensation had been replaced by some kind of sensation in his thigh, as if a head had rested there.

That was crazy, he'd known it was crazy; still knew it.

But the emotion had swirled around him, stronger than ever, and he'd reacted instinctively, responding neither to the relief nor the joy, but to something much more familiar. Whatever, whoever, was in that room with him, they were as deeply, profoundly lonely as he'd been for most of his life. It was a feeling with which he'd been too long familiar to be mistaken, and he'd found himself totally unable to resist offering whatever comfort he could.

Clumsily, he'd attempted to pat the head that seemed to be resting on his thigh.

It had been an odd sensation.

There hadn't seemed to be anything physically there.

And it hadn't been like in the ghost movies where his hand fucking tingled as it passed through something cold.

In fact, his hand hadn't seemed to pass through it at all.

There'd been a sense of some kind of resistance – not exactly physical, but still strong enough to make it seem like he'd been stroking … something.

The light had been wavering at that point, between grey and gold and once more he'd protested. He'd hardly been aware of the words he'd used, but he'd been more than aware of their effect. For a moment there'd been stillness, then the head, or whatever, had moved and he'd felt the unmistakable feeling of lips pressing against his palm.

His hand had reacted instinctively, curving to cup the face those lips belonged to, and as it did, the face … appeared.

A beautiful face, even if the eyes had been a little red and puffy, and it had been attached to what had seemed to be a rather attractive body. Not that Brian had been able to see that clearly as it had been crouched on the floor at his feet.

He'd known that he should have been shocked. Should have been leaping out of his chair, calling for a doctor – or a priest. Or both.

But instead he'd found himself staring at that face.

He'd known that he'd never seen it before. He would have remembered that mouth if nothing else.

And yet … and yet …

But then the face had suddenly moved, the body it was attached to leaping to its feet.

"I can see you!" it had gasped. "You can see me!"

It had seemed terrified and astonished by both those statements. Which, Brian had considered, was totally ass-backwards. He'd been the one who'd suddenly found himself face to face with a fucking ghost. Why the ghost was fucking terrified had been beyond him.

But then he'd thought about how he must look to the ghost, who apparently hadn't actually been able to see him till now. He'd guessed that it must have been a shock to find that the hand this … kid, really … had been kissing belonged to an ancient fucking faggot, old enough to be his grandfather.

Brian had, in that moment, felt deeply … wounded; betrayed, even.

He'd stood and had been about to stalk from that fucking room, vowing never to fucking go back there and to sell the fucking house as soon as …

But then he'd gotten a glimpse of the kid's face, alight with a joy so blinding that Brian had been mesmerized into immobility.

"You can see me!" he'd repeated. "Can you hear me too?"

"I'm not fucking deaf, of course I can fucking hear you!" Brian had snapped.

The kid had laughed then, a rich, joyous explosion of laughter. Then he'd blinked and for a moment he'd looked stunned. Then he'd laughed again.

"I'm laughing! I'd forgotten … I'd just forgotten," he'd said wonderingly. And Brian, who hadn't found himself laughing much of late years, had felt a sense of kinship so deep that he'd remained in the room. Okay, so he was an ancient fucking scarecrow that this kid would never regard as anything except some kind of … friend. At least he could be that. If he'd left at that point, Brian had known, the kid would be back to having … nothing, apparently.

He'd sat down again, suddenly exhausted, unable to find voice to even ask what the fuck was going on.

But it hadn't mattered.

The kid … Justin … had made up for it. All Brian had to do was to croak out an occasional answer when Justin's ramblings turned into the form of a question.

He'd introduced himself, and asked Brian's name and then had told Brian how he'd come to the house and how something had made him stay. He'd asked what the year was, and then calculated how long ago he'd died.

"Wow!" he'd exclaimed. "I'll be fifty this year. I mean, I would have been."

He'd seemed to realize then that some of the people he'd known would also have died in the intervening years, especially his family.

(Later Brian had checked, and found out that both of Justin's parents were dead, and that his little sister, herself now in her forties was living in Boston, married to a guy she'd met in college and they had three kids. Brian had even found her social media profile, complete with interactive vidcom. He'd gained access by amending his own to include details that allowed him to introduce himself as an old friend of the family. Justin had been able to provide him with enough family information to make that seem feasible. So Brian had shown him the little vidcom clips that showed her, and the kids, and they'd found out that she'd named her youngest after her "beloved brother who died much too young". That had touched not only Justin, but Brian himself, more than Brian had expected.)

*****

But all that was later. On that first afternoon, Justin had haltingly told Brian that he was gay, and that he hoped that was okay. What on earth either of them could have done about it if it hadn't been who the fuck knew, as Brian had pointed out to him later. He'd told Brian how his father had kicked him out of home when he'd found out he was gay after he'd been bashed in the head after his Prom. He'd been lucky, he'd told Brian, that he hadn't died then. It had happened at his best friend's house when he'd driven her home; she'd been his date for the Prom. He'd been saved by the fact that she'd left her wrap in the car. She'd turned back to get it and had called out to him when she'd seen the guy with the baseball bat raised to strike. It meant that it had struck him only a glancing blow, although that had been bad enough.

He'd said a little about how difficult it had been for him after that. His parents had divorced and he'd lived with his Mom after he'd been released from hospital. His motor skills had been fucked, he'd suffered headaches and mood swings and all sorts of shit. It had been nearly two years before he'd been able to get himself together enough to get some kind of job, and six months after that he'd started classes at the local community college to try to get some kind of degree at least.

And then the guy had come after him again.

"He was a total freak-oid," Justin had said. "I mean, he supposedly hates fags, right? But he tried to black mail me into giving him a blow job by threatening to tell my boss that I was gay. Like he would have cared. He was an old queen who pretty much told me when he gave me the job that he liked having some eye candy around."

Just like me, Brian had thought.

"Did they ever catch him?" Brian had asked.

Justin had shrugged. "How the fuck would I know? I told you, until I saw the house there was just nothing. And even here … I could see the house – the walls, the floor, ceiling, windows and shit, but nothing else, except these kind of vague shapes. I couldn't exactly read newspapers you know?"

The dinner buzzer had sounded then to let Brian know his dinner was ready, interrupting their tryst.

That was when they'd discovered that it was only in that room and in the ones close to it, that they could actually see and hear each other.

As they'd moved past that range, they'd still been conscious of each other's presence, but only as a sort of sensation of someone being there.

"Fuck!" Brian had exclaimed.

"Shit!" Justin had agreed.

Brian had gone downstairs and fetched his dinner up to the room.

Justin had practically salivated over it, telling Brian that it was the first time he'd actually smelled food "in like, forever".

To his delight, he'd found out that not only could he smell, he could also taste. He'd managed to snag a piece of roll from the plate and to his delight had actually maneuvered it into his mouth.

After that first mouthful, there had been no holding him back, and Brian had pretty much sat and watched as his meal simply disappeared before his eyes.

They were both to discover as time went on that the longer they spent together, the more Justin was able to interact with the physical world. It was as if Brian's … belief … in him somehow made him more "real". But that first evening together had been one of discoveries.

*****

"So you're like, gay, right?" Justin had asked, once the meal had been completely demolished and Brian was relaxing on the chaise longue with a glass of Beam.

Tongue in cheek, Brian had nodded.

Justin had bitten his lip, looking at Brian through his bangs.

"So … would you have … you know … wanted me? When I was alive, I mean?"

"Sunshine, when you were alive, I was already in my thirties. You wouldn't have wanted me."

"You're kidding, right?" Justin had said. "Brian, I …"

"Anyway, it's academic," Brian had gone on quickly, determined to make this clear right at the beginning. Rejection was bad enough; there was no way he was going to risk being rejected by a fucking ghost!

"I'm old enough now to be your fucking grandfather, so it hardly matters what you …"

"Seriously?" Justin had asked. "So how old are you?"

Brian winced, but managed to admit that he'd turned sixty two years ago.

Justin had seemed astonished. "But you can't be!" he'd protested. "Brian, seriously, you can't be!"

"Sunshine, I think I fucking know how old I am!"

"But you … when I look at you, you look … well, you know … young. Hot.

"Yeah, well, maybe you just haven't seen anyone young for so long you've forgotten …"

Justin had laughed again. Already Brian was half in love with that laugh.

"Brian, seriously, you don't look any more than about thirty. That's what I see when I look at you. I told you. You're totally hot. If I'd met you …"

He'd stopped then and to Brian's complete and utter fucking amazement, he'd blushed scarlet, and for the first time since he'd appeared under Brian's hand, had turned away, moving to the other side of the room.

"What? What the fuck?"

At that point something had clicked in Brian's mind. He'd thought about the kid so closeted his father hadn't known he was gay till the first bashing had happened, taking his fag hag best friend to the Prom as his "date". He'd thought about what Justin had told him of the time after the bashing, how he couldn't bear to be touched, and had been afraid to go out. Considered the struggles Justin had described that had been involved in just getting to work, and to classes.

Fuck! The poor fucking kid hadn't even had a chance to get laid before he'd been …

He'd risen from the couch and moved across the room to where the boy stood leaning against the wall (although not quite actually touching it), obviously struggling not to cry.

He'd put his hand on the kid's shoulder, only to have it shrugged away.

"Justin," Brian had attempted.

"I died a fucking virgin, alright?" Justin had snapped at him damply. "I'm totally pathetic. You can't tell me anything I don’t' fucking know, so don't pretend that you think you're too old for me, or I'm too young for you or what the fuck ever. Just be honest and tell me that you don't fucking want me!"

And that had been when Brian kissed him for the first time. Not a chaste grandfatherly kiss, but a kiss that almost re-defined the art.

He hadn't intended to kiss him at all, let alone like that. It had just happened.

But it had felt so fucking good, and Justin certainly hadn't seemed to object, so he'd done it again.

It hadn't been, that first night, quite like kissing someone … well, real, alive, at least.

As with the hand on hair thing, it had been more a sense of resistance than of physical contact, but there had been something else about the kisses that had made them different from any of the millions of kisses Brian had shared with thousands of men during his lifetime. He'd told himself that it was just because he'd never kissed a ghost before. But the truth had been, the truth was, that kissing Justin involved more than just lips and tongues and teeth. Kissing Justin, even that first night, involved an organ that, for Brian Kinney, usually only experienced any sexual activity as a form of cardio-vascular exercise. Not with any of the men he'd kissed back in the day had Brian Kinney's heart ever been involved the way it had been from that first kiss with Justin.

They hadn't tried sex that first night.

It had all been just too weird.

When the second kiss had ended, Justin had smiled at him in a way that had brought the sunlight back into the room, even though outside the windows the stars were shining. Then he had stroked Brian's face, a sensation that both of them almost felt.

Then he had said softly, "See what I mean? Hot. Beautiful. Fuck! I wish I had met you when …"

Brian hadn't seen any point in going down that path, so he'd headed back to the couch and his abandoned drink. This time Justin had followed and sat next to him. Somehow it had seemed natural for him to steal a sip from Brian's glass. That had been the end of any coherent exchanges between them that night. Turned out that while Justin's phantasmal body could do something with (digest?) food, it didn't deal at all well with alcohol. Justin had wound up pretty much passed out on the floor, and Brian had spent a ridiculously long time working out how to manipulate the body that he couldn't actually touch, onto the couch. He'd left him there, covered in a blanket and had sought his own bed, desperately needing time to persuade himself that the whole fucking experience had been some kind of prolonged hallucination.

*****

That idea had been knocked out of the ball park when after a night filled with ridiculously romantic dreams, he'd woken to find the blond boy lying beside him, watching his face.

"You can see me!" the kid had trumpeted jubilantly when Brian had woken and blinked in something like outrage that the fucking hallucination was still around. Was actually lying in – or on – or something – his fucking bed with him.

"I hoped you'd be able to, because I can see you. I guess this room is close enough to my studio."

"Your what? It's my fucking house and that is not a studio, it's my …"

"I know, I know," Justin had soothed. "But I think of it as my studio. When I first went in there I thought how amazing it would be to paint in that room. So that's how I think of it. I bet that's why we can see each other there – because I've painted you there so often. Or I would have, you know, if I'd been alive while I've been here. If I'd lived here with …"

He'd broken off suddenly, his eyes widening. "I bet I did. I bet that's who they are!"

Brian shoved past him to get off the bed. He had no idea what the little twat was talking about and it was way too early for any of this shit. He needed coffee.

He pulled on a robe and headed downstairs, knowing that Albrecht would have some waiting for him.

He couldn't see Justin follow him, couldn't hear him, but he'd known he was there, just the same.

He'd even felt his disapproval, his envy even, when he'd sat down deliberately at the dining room table and had a quiet and uninterrupted cup of coffee. But he hadn't been able to face the disappointment he was sure was on Justin's face, so he'd taken the practically unheard of step of seeking out Albrecht in the kitchen and asking if he could have his breakfast on a tray.

Albrecht had been happy to oblige, delighted that Mr. Kinney was actually eating for a change. He'd finished his whole dinner last night and now wanted more than his usual coffee and juice for breakfast. He'd insisted on carrying the tray upstairs, and Brian, curious about what Albrecht would see and hear once they reached the studio, had let him. Justin had appeared as soon as they got close to the room, hovering over the tray of fresh bagels and ham, fruit and juice and coffee as if he were ready to snatch it out of the servant's hands. But Albrecht had apparently seen nothing, hadn't even heard Justin's fervent, "Brian, I love you!" as he'd left the room and Justin had been free to fall on the food.

Brian, wishing he'd thought to get another cup, had managed to snag the glass at least and poured some coffee into it, sinking down at his desk with a rueful grin. "Looks like it's just you and me, Sunshine," he'd said.

Justin, an expression of something like ecstasy on his face as he'd sipped at his first coffee for over thirty years, nodded.

"How the fuck have you survived," Brian had demanded, "without eating when you're obviously some kind of fucking bottomless pit of hunger?"

Justin had grinned at him round a mouthful of bagel and replied, "I don't really need food. I mean I don't get hungry or anything … it's just … oh, man, I've missed the taste!"

He swallowed and said thoughtfully, "Actually, I don't think I could have done anything like this before yesterday. I wasn't … "here" enough, if that makes sense."

"Sunshine, none of this makes any fucking sense," Brian had responded tartly.

"Yes, yes, I think it does. I think that's what the other house is all about."

And ignoring Brian's "what the fuck's?" and "are you fucking kidding me's", Justin had described the whole business with the "other" house that he'd sometimes inadvertently visited.

"I think they're us," he'd finished up. "Us in a kind of alternate reality where, I don't know, obviously I didn't get killed. Maybe we met and because I was with you, I wasn't where Hobbs found me, so he didn't get a second chance or something. And then we came to live here. And I think we've been living here all this time."

Brian, predictably, had told him it was total bullshit.

But even Brian couldn't help but wonder.

*****

In any case, before too many days had passed he'd found himself ordering the easels and racks and fucking canvases that Justin had described as being in that other studio.

He'd also cleared out the bedroom next to the studio and ordered a small intimate dining setting so that he and Justin could at least have dinner together. Albrecht never came upstairs in the evening, so that seemed safe enough. After exploring the width of the wall cavities, he even ordered the installation of a dumb waiter, so that there was no reason for Albrecht to even need to bring up the food.

They also discovered that, since the pool and workout area lay directly below the studio, Justin could make his presence felt down there as well. Brian could barely see or hear him down there, just vaguely make out a sort of glow in the space that Justin occupied. And Justin couldn't actually swim. His one attempt had left him breathless with indignant frustration because he'd been completely unable to make any headway through the water at all; but he was happy to sit perched on a sun lounge and sketch Brian endlessly while the older man worked out – still intent, even now, perhaps more now than ever, of maintaining some kind of physical fitness regime.

The art thing was one of the weirder aspects of the whole bizarre situation. Justin could paint on the canvases that Brian had purchased for him. And the paints disappeared, right enough – Brian was forever ordering replacements. But the canvases remained, to Brian, for the most part frustratingly blank. At times, out of the corner of his eye, he caught tantalizing glimpses of vivid color, but when he turned his head to look directly at them, the color vanished, and the canvases appeared as pristine as the day they had been purchased.

It was the same with the sketches. Pencils and charcoal wore away, but all Brian ever saw of the result of their demise was an occasional glimpse of line and form.

But it made Justin happy. Brian would never forget the look on his Sunshine's face when the first carton of materials had arrived, full of sketchbooks and crayons, charcoals and paints and brushes. He'd been incandescent with happiness, and had snatched open the first sketch book with all the eagerness of a five year old at Christmas. When he'd found that he could actually manipulate the pencil and create for the first time since his death, the face he'd raised to Brian had been wet with tears but glowing with wonder and gratitude.

Brian's own heart had throbbed at the sight.

If there was any particular moment when Brian had realized that he, the supreme cynic, the one whose life-long creed had always been "I don't believe in love, I believe in fucking", had fallen deeply, irrevocably, in love with this golden boy ghost, it was that one.

Because the emotion that he'd felt when Justin had looked at him like that was a profound thankfulness that he'd been able to bring that joy to his lover's face.

*****

They had become lovers by then. Of a sort.

Well, they'd had sex.

Brian wondered sometimes what anyone would have thought if they'd walked in while Justin was riding his cock. Or giving him a blow job. Or worse, when Brian, determined not to let age dictate their activities, hoisted the boy's legs to his shoulders and fucked him face to face.

It was a strange sensation. Still not quite like touching. But still feeling … something. And they both got off, so they must be doing something right.

The first time he'd automatically reached for a packet of condoms, and Justin had laughed at him.

Brian had to admit he'd probably been right to. Having sex with a ghost had to be the ultimate in safe sex.

Brian had needed some persuading to even try actual copulation, but Justin had been eager to experiment and it hadn't taken all that much persuasion on his part to seduce his older lover.

That age thing had been, of course, the main factor in Brian's reluctance. No matter how many times Justin reassured him, he still felt like an old perv when he thought about the scarecrow he saw in the mirror every day fucking this beautiful boy. But, as always, Justin got his way.

*****

Sometimes, in the moments afterwards, when they'd lie close together and Brian could almost imagine that he felt the warmth of another body next to his, Brian wondered if Justin was right. Maybe in some other life they had met, had fallen in love, had come to live in this house together. Maybe that explained what had drawn them both here, and explained the connection between them.

Because there had to be some fucking explanation.

Brian had, of course, plugged into the vidcom and looked him up. Justin Taylor, born November 29th, 1982; died October 23rd 2003.

All the details fitted exactly with what Justin had told him. Well, except that the police had treated it as a routine mugging gone wrong, and had made little if any attempt to find the killer. That hadn't surprised Brian. He remembered Pittsburgh in those days after Stockwell's election. He'd also remembered the colossal sense of betrayal that he'd felt when, after the election, it had been carefully explained to him that he wouldn't be heading up any New York expansion, that neither Vance nor Stockwell felt that he'd be an "appropriate" fit.

In other words, he'd sold out all his own fucking principles only to get royally screwed as soon as the election was over.

Well, Vance and Stockwell had both paid for that.

When Vance had appointed that dickhead Brad to head up the New York branch, Brian had taken him to court, alleging discrimination. Not based on his sexual preference, there had been no law back then to protect him. No, he'd alleged it was because of his marital status – or lack thereof. And he'd won. Vance's lawyers had argued that the "marital status" provisions were intended to protect women from being discriminated against, but the statute had no wording around gender or actual status, only that it was illegal to discriminate based on whether or not you were married. Vance had found it very difficult to explain why he'd appointed a fairly junior account executive with half of Brian's experience and none of his awards rather than his junior partner to such a critical position and Brian had walked away with a shit load of cash and a release from his partnership agreement, including the shredding of the non-competition clause. He'd started his own agency a month later, and within the year had won from Vance three key client accounts. Vance had been out of business three years later.

In the next Mayoral election, Brian had offered his services to an Independent candidate who had a good track record on gay rights and she'd won in a landslide.

The first thing she'd done as Mayor, at Brian's quiet prompting, had been to insist on re-opening an old investigation into the deaths of a number of street kids and young male prostitutes. The result of that had been not just to see Stockwell disgraced, but to put him behind bars for perverting the course of justice.

But Justin had died during the Stockwell years, and Brian had no doubt at all that no attempt had ever been made to identify the killer. In fact, if they had found out it was Hobbs, they'd probably have given him a medal.

Brian had also checked on Hobbs.

What he found made him frustrated as Hell. He'd planned to make Hobbs' life a misery, but he didn’t get the chance. The asshole had married and divorced three times, had declared bankruptcy because he couldn't make all the alimony payments, had taken to gambling to try to get some cash and wound up on the wrong side of the ledger with the wrong sort of people. He'd disappeared, only reported missing because he'd missed some payments, and eventually his body had turned up in the Susquehanna, missing a few fingers and with a hole in its skull as well as two broken knee caps. Brian's only satisfaction was that it obviously hadn't been an easy death.

*****

But the primary result of all this research was to confirm everything that Justin had told him about himself. Which meant that either Brian was having some weird flashback to newspaper articles he couldn't ever remember reading, or else …

Or else his little ghost had once truly been Justin Taylor.

And was now truly a ghost; living, or whatever the fuck ghosts did, in Brian's house.

And sleeping, or whatever the fuck ghosts did, in Brian's bed.

Not to mention eating Brian out of house and home, and using the fucking top of the range shit Brian had paid a fortune for painting fucking masterpieces that Brian would never even fucking see.

Oh, and fucking and sucking and …

Making him, at his advanced age, "fall in love" like some pathetic schoolboy.

With a kid just shy of his twenty first birthday – or else not quite fifty, depending on how you looked at it.

Either way, it was fucking ridiculous.

He'd even given in to the little twat over the his "personal service provider".

Justin had been painting happily as usual during the afternoon, when the very beautiful Asian boy arrived for Brian's regular appointment at 3pm. Brian, who had forgotten it was a Tuesday, had just slipped quietly from the room to meet the guy at the head of the stairs and steer him, for a change, into one of the spare bedrooms, not wanting to risk Justin finding him in "their" bed. But he'd barely gotten his pants undone when he'd become aware of Justin's presence, even if he couldn't see him, and after that the whole thing was doomed to failure. Brian, frustrated and embarrassed, had ushered his deeply apologetic "provider" out of the house, and had barely reached the upper floor again when there'd been an almighty crash from the studio.

He'd run in to find the easel over-turned and the glass jar that Justin rinsed his brushes in smashed on the floor. He must have been using green paint, because the water was forming a vivid green pond on the pale floor boards.

"Who the fuck is he?" Justin had practically screamed.

Brian had been almost too taken aback to respond at first, but it wasn't long before the whole thing escalated into a full scale row. There had been shouting (from both of them) and pouting (from both of them) and angry sex.

These had been followed by sulks (again - both of them) and then apologies (both) and kisses and some kind of agreement that if Brian absolutely had to have some other guy suck him off he wouldn't do it at the house.

As he never fucking left the house any more Brian recognized that that provision pretty much meant that he was promising monogamy, but at least there was a kind of get out clause to act as a sop to his pride.

In fact, if the truth be known, his pride had received a massive boost from Justin's reaction.

The fact that in his sixties he could draw this kind of jealous explosion from a much younger lover (never mind that that lover was a fucking ghost) did wonders for his ego – and for his sex drive. Justin was left plotting how to find an excuse to throw that kind of tantrum again, because clearly Brian had totally relished it.

****

But now here Brian was, involved in this ridiculous, and completely fucking wonderful, relationship with a fucking ghost …

And his son was about to visit him for the first time in years.

Gus had come to Pittsburgh to discuss his future, including his possible role in his father's business empire.

And how the fuck he was going to juggle keeping Justin happy without Gus getting suspicious - or at least thinking his father had totally lost his mind - was more than Brian could begin to imagine.

Fuck!

He bet the Brian that lived in that other universe never had these kind of problems.

But he supposed that if the Justin _**that**_ Brian lived with was anything like _**his**_ Justin, he'd have found other ways to drive Brian crazy and keep him insanely happy at the same time.

He hoped so, anyway.

He figured that even thinking that was a sign that Justin was getting to him. Back in the day he'd have had no patience with such lesbionic waffling.

But now …

Now was different.

Now _**he**_ was different.

For the first time in his life he was happy.

He wondered if Gus would notice.


	2. A Winter's Tale: Love's Not Time's Fool 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This one is a Thanksgiving story.
> 
> Gus arrives to talk to Brian about his future. How will Brian deal with having Gus in the house and keeping his ghost-lover happy without arousing Gus's suspicions that his father is a candidate for the loony bin?
> 
> It's not awfully kind (indirectly) to Linds and Melanie. It's also a little bitter-sweet. But I kind of like it. I hope you do too.

As Gus pulled into the driveway of his father's new home, he found himself trying to picture the high energy businessman who was the only father he knew with this serene environment. He wasn't particularly successful. It added another level of strangeness to an already strange situation.

He'd never really known his father well. The man had been, all through his life, a source of generous Christmas and birthday gifts, but at the same time, a remote figure who would on rare occasions make awkward visits. One of his mothers hated him, the other constantly made excuses for him. Neither of them seemed to actually know him very well. Gus wondered if anyone did. For himself, Gus didn't feel as if he knew Brian Kinney at all.

A few months ago, though, his father had contacted him, announcing that he was essentially planning to retire and asking if Gus was interested in taking on an active role in the businesses he'd spent his life building.

After much internal debate, Gus had decided to come and see him, to talk it over. He hadn't told either of his mothers. He knew what Melanie would think. Could practically hear her now, spitting that his father was trying to buy him, as always. As for his Mom, Lindsay, she would go all gooey eyed and start romanticizing about how it was all meant to be.

Both of them would attempt to pressure him into doing what they wanted and as they'd disagree, they would then argue about it.

That had been the pattern of Gus's whole life, whenever his father's name had come up.

So he just hadn't told them. He'd informed the senior partners in his law firm that he needed leave to attend to some personal matters, left the small apartment that was the only home he had at the moment since his short-lived marriage had crashed and burned, got in his car and started to drive. From the road he'd contacted his father who'd seemed both surprised and even a little disconcerted to hear from him, and now he was here.

All this left him feeling though, as he drove round to the side of the house, more as if he were gearing up for an interview, or an important business meeting, rather than anticipating a reunion with the father he hadn't seen for nearly two years.

Brian had come to JR's wedding. Well, he'd made a brief appearance at the reception. He'd smiled at her in a way that Gus couldn't ever seem to remember him smiling before, looking truly emotional and tender, told her she looked beautiful and that her father would have been so proud of her, then he'd left. Later, among the gifts, she'd found an envelope with an extremely generous check. Mel, of course, had mouthed off about what an asshole Kinney was, always thinking his money could excuse his bad behavior.

Gus had just wondered if his father had ever been proud of him.

*****

When the car came to a halt Gus sat for a moment, suddenly feeling absurdly shy.

It had occurred to him more than once on the way down from Ottawa that he'd never actually stayed with his father before.

There had been talk of it a few times when he was growing up, but it had never happened. Somehow Mom's "spending a couple of weeks with your father" had always turned into Mel's "you'll love staying with my folks in Florida, they're right near the beach". Or to him going to some damned camp or … anything but visiting his Dad.

He had no way of knowing whether Brian had ever fought to have him come and stay. Probably not. He'd signed over his parental rights right after Gus had been born, and hardly ever came to visit in Toronto. Not that he would have been welcome. Gus knew that. Every time he had come, the visit had been preceded by days of rows between Mom and Mel and once he'd left it had been weeks before the cold silences between the two had been banished from the house.

Maybe that's why he'd stayed away.

And why he'd never insisted on Gus being allowed to come and stay with him.

Gus was here at his father's place now though, and giving himself a shake, he got out of the car.

*****

He didn't know what sort of a reception he'd expected, but he found himself both touched and surprised by the warmth his father's welcome. He'd never been sure with his father whether any gesture of physical affection would be acceptable, but this time after a momentary hesitation his father had reached out for him and they'd hugged; a little awkwardly, true; but Gus had felt the depth and strength of Brian's love for him in a way that he hadn't since he was a very young child – before they'd moved to Canada. Those memories flooded back to him now, and he found himself overwhelmingly glad that he'd come.

Maybe now, as an adult, without his Mom and Mel and Kate, his ex wife, all chipping in with their opinions, he could finally come to know his father a little.

As he followed the tall, still slender figure up the stairs to the suite of rooms that Brian had had prepared for him he found himself, for the first time in a long time, looking forward to the next days and weeks. For so long every day had been a struggle to get out of bed and force himself to go in to a job that he'd never enjoyed, but of late had really come to hate. But now he felt as if there was light at the end of a very long tunnel.

He'd gone to law school because it had been what Mel had wanted him to do and he'd never been able to martial any arguments that she would have recognized as to why he shouldn't; she would have regarded his only real argument - that he simply didn't want to - as pathetically childish and self-indulgent. It would only have garnered her standard, "if you don't shape up you're going to wind up just like your father" speeches.

He'd never really considered his father's money. Sure, it had always been there to provide the latest gadgets and gifts while he was growing up, but he'd never expected his father's wealth to support him; let alone for his father to offer him a role in managing any of his businesses.

He vaguely remembered one conversation during a particularly tense visit of Brian's to Toronto for his high school graduation. Mel hadn't even wanted to get him a ticket, had kept insisting that each pupil was only entitled to two, which was total bullshit, but very Melanie. They'd had a meal together, the four of them, the night before the ceremony, and Gus vaguely recalled his father asking whether he was taking any business management units in his degree, but Mel had jumped in and told Brian in no uncertain terms that business law was all he needed to know about, if that's the direction he decided to take; that he had to concentrate on where his real interests were, not get side-tracked.

His real interests!

Fuck!

As Gus placed his bags down in the beautiful room with its view out across the tennis courts to the hills in the distance, he reflected that Melanie had never really shown any desire to know what his real interests were. She'd just told him what she thought they should be, and expected him to follow her direction. And Mom had let her. He wondered what would have happened if he'd appealed to his father; but even now he shrank from the incredible drama that would have stirred up. As a boy, even as a young man, he'd felt himself incapable of it. So he'd gone into law, and he'd met and married a suitable girl and all the time he'd felt as if he'd been living someone else's life.

Maybe now was the time to find out how to live his own life. His father was, after all, by all accounts the absolute master of doing just that.

*****

"Gus."

His father's voice drew Gus out of his thoughts.

"Why don't you leave your stuff for Albrecht to unpack for you and come down and have a drink with me? Then I'll show you around."

"Oh. Okay. Sure."

His dad grinned at him. "Don't worry. I let Albrecht pack and unpack my Armani."

Gus laughed. His memories of his father included more than one queen out over something putting Brian's designer clothing at risk.

They made their way down the sweeping staircase.

"I can't believe this house," Gus said.

Brian snorted. "It's too fucking big, but …" he shrugged and with a strange little smile said, "I like it."

"So do I," Gus affirmed.

He was surprised when his father put an arm around his shoulders and gave him a hug. "Good!" he said. "It'll be yours eventually."

Gus felt uncomfortable. "Dad … I didn't come because of that."

His father raised an eyebrow at him as he waved him to a seat in front of the open fire in the huge central room, and said, "Why not? It's not like I have any other fucking family to leave things to."

Gus shook his head. "It's not why I came," he repeated. "I just …"

He took the glass his father handed him and sipped it slowly, using that as an excuse for not continuing. The truth was he didn't really know why he _**had**_ come. It wasn't about the money. It wasn't even about the job his father had seemed to be offering him. It was just …

His father poured his own drink and brought it to sit near him in one of the obscenely comfortable chairs that were scattered around the room.

"You just …?" he queried.

"I just figured it was a chance to spend some time with you and to … to find out who you are. Who I am."

Brian considered him, tongue poked into his cheek in an expression Gus realized he'd seen often enough on his own face in the mirror. He went on, "Mel has told me all my life that I'm just like my father so …"

This was rewarded with another snort of laughter. "I'll just bet she has. Every time you pissed her off, if I know Melanie."

Gus found himself grinning. For the first time the sting had gone out of the all too familiar reproof. He raised his glass to Brian. "You got it in one."

Brian nodded.

There was silence for a moment. Not an uncomfortable silence, but it had the feeling of something building, a sense of heightened drama, as if an important cue was about to be spoken.

And then it was.

*****

"Why did you sign over your rights to her?"

For a moment Gus regretted asking the question. His father looked wounded to the heart. Then the look was gone; but what took its place was bitter and perhaps even a little vengeful.

"What did they tell you?" he asked.

"Oh, Mom said that although you loved me you were never cut out to be a father, and that you did as much as you felt comfortable with. And Mel said … she said you'd never wanted me, and that you were only ever intended to be the sperm donor and what the fuck did it matter anyway? She said …" he paused for a moment, knowing the words were going to hurt, and maybe wanting to pay his father back a little for all the hours, weeks, years he'd spent wondering. "She said you were a selfish narcissistic asshole and that I should count myself lucky they'd got me away from you before you had a chance to do any real damage."

Another snort, but there was no humor in this one.

A pause.

Then, "Did they ever tell you that when you were first born I refused?"

Gus stared at him. "No!"

He was astonished at how that made him feel. Even more bewildered about what changed his father's mind – had he done it when they'd moved to Toronto? But also angry. His mother especially should have known how much even that small indication that his father had once wanted him would have meant to him.

Ridiculously childish tears stung his eyes. As he closed them, squeezing the tears back, he felt his father's hand grip his knee cap for an instant. Then Brian stood and moved to fetch the bottle of 18 year old single malt Scotch they'd been drinking. He put in on a small table where they could both reach it and refilled their glasses.

Gus sensed that he was playing for time. But before he could say anything, Brian sat once more and sighed.

Then he said, "You're not a fucking kid any more. You deserve to know this shit."

His voice was raw.

And Gus knew then, knew with absolute certainty, that he'd been lied to; that his whole life had been founded on the lie that his father didn't want him, had never wanted him.

He reached out in his turn to rest his hand for a moment on his father's arm. Brian looked up at him, a long look that allowed Gus for maybe the first time to see into his heart. And what he saw there took precedence over the anger that had been building in him, and made him smile back shyly into Brian's eyes.

"I'm here now," he said; and if it was on the surface a non sequitur, Brian still understood his meaning.

He nodded and, after another sip of the whisky, held the glass in both hands, staring into the amber depths as he continued hoarsely, "I told them when they first gave me the papers to sign after you were born that I'd changed my mind; that I couldn't do it; that I wanted you to know you had a father."

He gave a reminiscent huff of laughter. "Mel went fucking ballistic."

He looked up for a moment and their eyes met. Gus gave a rueful grin. "I bet." Pause. Then, "So what changed?"

Brian was silent for a moment and then seemed to come to a decision. "They split up," he said. "Linds found out Mel was having an affair and she threw her out the house."

Gus found himself unsurprised by that. He'd heard, as kids do, things that looking back made him feel like they'd both had little flings over the years; some more bitterly fought over than others. But it didn't seem to him to make sense as a reason for his father to sign away his rights. Unless he'd only held onto them to piss off Melanie, and had signed once she was out of the picture. That thought bought a stab of pain.

"Your mother, who sometimes behaves like a typical fucking blonde …"

He broke off for a moment to steady the bottle of scotch which had suddenly seemed to rock on the little table.

"Or maybe she's just a fucking woman … anyway, she decided she needed help with the bills and with you and who the fuck knows what else … so she took up with this guy … some French Canadian, I can't remember his name. He wanted to stay in the States but couldn't get his green card, so they decided to get married. He had the fucking nerve to tell me that if they did I'd have to stay away from you in case the authorities caught on what they were up to."

Gus stared at him. All of this was completely new to him. He wondered if Brian had agreed to sign his rights over so that this guy could adopt him and it would all look more real to the authorities. He supposed that he might have done that to help Lindsay. Gus knew Brian loved her. Lindsay had told him so.

"Your father loves us both, Gus," she'd said, time and again. "He just can't show it. He doesn't know how."

And they'd made sure Brian never got a chance to learn, Gus thought with a jolt of pain. They took me away from him so he never got a chance to practice showing me, except when he came for visits and even then they hardly ever left me alone with him.

The thought blasted through him like a dazzle of lightning that the hour or so since he'd arrived was the longest stretch of time he'd ever spent alone with his father. How fucked was that?

"So … you signed to help them out with the Immigration Authorities?" he stammered.

"Fuck no!" Brian ejaculated, affronted. "I said I'd sign if she and Mel got back together. I thought … I thought that way you'd have a fucking real family. That it was the best thing I could do for you."

His voice was very quiet on those last words, but they fell into a profound stillness so Gus had no doubt he'd heard them.

He sat for a long moment realizing how wrong Lindsay had been.

His father had known exactly how to show how much he'd loved his son.

He'd signed away his rights to try to give Gus a solid family; and all through Gus's childhood, while Melanie sniped and cut at him, and Lindsay did her martyr routine, he'd never once, while Gus was around anyway, retaliated by reminding them of the sacrifice he'd made. He'd done his best with the limited contact he'd been allowed, the short amount of time they'd been able to spend together, to try to demonstrate his love, and also with the expensive gifts and lavish financial support he'd provided for his son. But the enormous gift he'd given, the sacrifice he'd made for Gus's sake, that he'd never mentioned until now.

Gus fought to blink back his tears. He knew his father would hate an emotional scene. And he didn't want Brian to ever reproach himself for what he'd done. He couldn't have known … couldn't have foreseen how happily Gus would have traded a life with Melanie in it for a life with his father. And Gus was never going to tell him. There was no point, no time for regrets.

They had now. That was all that counted.

"I'm here now," he said again.

Brian gave another snort of laughter and nodded. "So you are. About fucking time, too, that I spent some time with my Sonnyboy."

A pause. Then, as if gearing himself for disappointment, "How long can you stay?"

And all the pieces of Gus's former life just fell away and with love and hope he stepped into his future.

"As long as you'll have me," he said.

*****

This time the pause was a long one.

"Don't you have a job to go back to?" Brian asked.

Gus shrugged. "A job I fucking hate. I've always hated."

He bit his lip. "I don't expect you to support me or anything, I'll find something. And I've still got some money saved, even if most of it went in … in the divorce."

That part he hated saying. He felt such a fool. He'd known going in that it wasn't right, that he and Kate were never going to make it long term. They had practically nothing in common, despite all Melanie's protestations to the contrary.

Unlike him, Kate was a career lawyer. She loved it. Loved the job itself as well as the prestige and the money. Gus had hated just about everything about it.

He sat now trying to work out what sort of a job he could find here if he didn't want to go into law. He supposed that Brian's original communication about finding something in his company might still be on the table, although if his father wanted him to take on the company's legal work …

Gus sighed.

"Don't be fucking stupid," Brian said. "The only reason I didn't sign over anything to you when you graduated college was because while I was getting stuff drawn up you announced your fucking engagement and as soon as I met the little darling I thought she was a …"

He broke off. Then said, "Well, I thought it wasn't smart to hand over anything that she'd be able to claim half of, anyway. The lawyers tell me that now that the divorce is finalized, they can tie it up so she can't get her hands on anything."

Gus looked at him. "You didn't think it would last?" he asked, not sure how he felt about that.

Brian sucked his lips between his teeth; another gesture Gus had seen in the mirror a time or two. "I thought you weren't a good match," he said slowly.

Gus laughed, a little bitterly, but also with a sense of relief. His mothers hadn't done yet reproaching him for not doing more to make the marriage work.

He felt that hand squeeze his knee again.

"Don't sweat it, Sonnyboy. You can take as long as you like; make sure you know what direction you want to go in. I mean … if you want to open your own law firm, do pro bono work, whatever you want."

"I never want to open another fucking law book in my life," Gus heard himself say. And looking into Brian's eyes realized that for the first time he'd shocked his father.

Then Brian sat back, with another of those lips pulled in looks and said eventually, "Fucking Melanie."

Gus shrugged.

Brian nodded. "Her fucking daughter's too fucking dumb to get through law, so she set you up to follow in her footsteps instead."

Gus supposed that he should have leapt to JR's defense, but he didn't. It felt so good to be able to say, without calling down the fires of Hell onto his head, "JR hated school. Always did. And no matter what Mel said or threatened if she didn't want to do her homework or shit, she just didn't."

Brian laughed. "Just like Mikey," he chuckled. "Her fucking father was just the same."

He was about to say something else, then, but all of a sudden there was a soft chime from the house alarm system.

"Dinner," he announced. "Come on, Sonnyboy, let's have something to eat and then I'll take you over the rest of the house."

He stood and waited for Gus to join him, ushering his son ahead of him through into the formal dining room.

There was a bang from overhead and for a moment Brian looked alarmed. "I must have left the upstairs window open and something's blown over. You sit down and I'll just go close it."

He was gone a little longer than Gus expected, and looked a little flustered when he sat down again; but he smiled at his son who was talking to Albrecht about what his favorite food items were.

"Watch out for him," Brian advised. "If you let him he'll force feed you till you're the size of the house."

Albrecht huffed and tutted, but Gus watched the way he fussed over Brian, making sure that he was comfortably seated and had water and wine within reach. He sensed that the servant was genuinely fond of his father, and that brought a smile to his face.

"You should do more of that," his father observed unexpectedly. "It suits you."

Gus ducked his head. He hadn't had much to smile about recently, but now … now he felt lighter than he had for years.

And not because Brian was obviously ready and willing to meet any financial needs he might have. That was hardly even a part of it. It was more that …

In the short time he'd been here, he'd been made aware that Brian was simply ready to support him – in whatever way he could, in whatever Gus decided to do.

Gus, who'd never in his life experienced that kind of unconditional support, from his mothers, or even from his wife, felt uplifted by it in ways that he couldn't begin to articulate – even to himself. He truly felt that he could do anything, at least try anything, just because his father would be behind him with that quiet lips pulled in look, encouraging him and understanding. Just understanding.

Gus felt his smile widen.

Brian gave one of his tongue in cheek smirks and ate a few mouthfuls of his dinner.

"Take some time," he advised. "It's a good place here to just sit and think for a while. Get to know yourself, and then you can work out what you want. You might be surprised at what you find."

"Were you?" Gus heard himself ask.

To his surprise, his father seemed to flush a little, and ducked his head with an almost shy little smile. "You could say that," he said at last.

Then he laughed.

"Okay, enough of all this shit, who do you think's going to win the big game on Thursday?"

Gus knew that the subject was being deliberately led into banalities, but also knew it was probably what they both needed. He was also reminded that this week was Thanksgiving; the first one he'd ever spent with his father.

*****

They sat talking for a while over dinner, but Gus sensed his father was restless, and thought that maybe the older man was tired. It had been an emotional evening.

For that matter, he was kind of tired himself.

He asked Brian if he'd mind if they left the tour of the house till the morning, and was surprised at how … relieved … his father seemed at that suggestion.

"I think I might make it an early night," Brian said. "But if you want anything, just walk to the end of the hall and turn right. My room's down at the end."

He got up, and then said, "If you want to try the hot tub, it's just through there. I can show …"

Gus smiled at him. "Not tonight, I don't think. I think maybe just a shower, and then bed. It was a longish drive."

Brian nodded and they walked up the stairs together, parting a little awkwardly at the top of the stairs.

*****

Gus, true to his word, had a shower, watched a few minutes of TV and then turned it off and drifted into sleep. He slept soundly all night.

Brian didn't have quite such a relaxing time.

To start off with, he had to go down and raid the kitchen on behalf of the outraged blond who was more than a little pissed off with him for eating in the downstairs dining room.

Then he had to go through "The Rules" once again, since Justin, judging by the trick with the whisky decanter and the overturning of his damned easel when they were sitting down to dinner, seemed to have forgotten them.

The Rules involved Justin not doing anything to draw attention to himself while Gus was around, and in return Brian had promised to still spend as much time with him as possible, including a couple of hours every afternoon in the studio.

It wasn't ideal, but since Brian could hardly introduce his son to the house's resident ghost – given that no one else could apparently either see or hear Justin – it was the best he could come up with.

"I just feel like now he's here you don't …" Justin's voice became very quiet, he knew he was on dangerous ground, "… you don't need me any more. You don't even want me. It would be easier if I wasn't around."

Brian huffed. "Of course it would be fucking easier!" he snapped. "But why the fuck would you think I want 'easy'? 'Easy' would be getting some boy toy to move in here with me. Someone I could keep in line by threatening to throw his ass out the door if he gave me a hard time."

He reached out to pull his pouting whatever-the-fuck Justin was into his arms; an almost-embrace that both of them had adjusted to, become familiar with, even maybe craved a little or some fucking thing.

"I don't want 'easy'," Brian found himself assuring the blond. "I …"

He broke off. Fuck this was hard! This was why he'd never fucking "done" relationships. But he supposed he was doing one now, so he'd just have to fucking man-up. "I want you," he finished, surprisingly firmly.

Justin gave a gasp – or what would have been a gasp if he'd had any air in his lungs – and threw his arms around Brian's neck.

"I just get scared," he admitted.

Brian who understood all too well what he was most scared of, hugged him harder. "I want you," he repeated. "I will always fucking want you."

Justin, for his part, felt the fear of being thrust back into the abyss of loneliness that had been his existence before Brian recede and kissed him fervently.

Brian resolved to get Gus to spend as much time as possible in the pool area with him. Down there, Justin was only a vague presence, but at least there the three of them could almost be together, even if Brian couldn't do anything to acknowledge Justin's presence. He'd just have to get the little twat to promise not to get up to any hi-jinks. Like that was going to fucking work!

Well, maybe he could bribe him.

There were all sorts of foodstuffs that Brian never had in the house. Ice cream. Cookies. Chocolate.

Maybe if he dangled the promise of a huge box of designer chocolates in front of him, Justin might conceivably decide it was worth behaving.

Brian sighed.

He figured it was worth a try. But only as a last resort.

He'd start off with blow jobs.

*****

The next couple of days passed for Gus almost in a dream, so easy and relaxed were they. He spent time with his father and became used to the man's sardonic, not to say acerbic, sense of humor. He explored the house, although he didn't spend much time in his father's wing; it seemed pushy and disrespectful to insert himself there unless he was asked. He liked it though, although he did wonder about the "studio" into which his father had shown him briefly. It had everything an artist could want but … there wasn't even a sketch to show any sign that his father actually used any of the lavish equipment.

It had beautiful light, though, he had to admit; even though the days were cold, and the sky was leaden, threatening snow, the room seemed filled with a kind of golden glow.

While the snow held off, he also wandered the grounds which were beautiful but somehow felt sad, almost bereft. They were well kept, but still seemed uncared for; unloved. He adored all gardens and itched to throw himself into turning the empty neatness into a marvel of color and shape and feeling. He wondered what they would look like in the Spring and Summer, and yearned to see them then. Maybe he would, who knew?

He also spent a lot of time with Brian in the pool and work-out area. He wasn't surprised to find that his father worked out religiously every day as well as swimming laps with the tenacity and energy of a man half his age, but he was surprised to find that his father also like to just lounge around down there, reading, or doing some desultory surfing on the vidcom. Gus had to admit, though, that he enjoyed it too. The area had floor to ceiling windows all along the outer wall which looked out across the garden and he found it incredibly restful just to sit and look out and maybe dream a little of the work that he would love to have done out in the green world beyond the window.

The only thing he found strangely unsettling about that room was the occasional sense that someone was looking at him, even when his father was on the treadmill or in the pool. He knew it was ridiculous, but every now and again the feeling would wash over him and if he turned his head quickly he would sometimes catch a glimpse of … something … out of the corner of his eye.

His father seemed unaware of it though; in fact, in that room he seemed even more relaxed and … well, happy, than anywhere else in the house, so Gus shrugged it aside. Put it down to the relaxation in nerves that had been over-stretched for longer than he could remember.

*****

When he awoke on Thanksgiving morning it was snowing. He and Brian spent the morning as usual in the workout area, and then he went for a quick walk outside before lunch.

When he got back his father was nowhere to be seen, so Gus went upstairs. He'd intended to just go to his room and change out of his snow-wet clothes, but when he reached the head of the stairs he heard voices coming from the studio. Intrigued, he moved that way to see who'd come visiting. What he heard stopped him in his tracks and for a moment he couldn't help but stand eaves-dropping.

*****

"Brian, I get it alright. I know he's your son and you want to spend Thanksgiving with him and have a proper family dinner and all that shit. I get it."

The voice sounded angry, frustrated, but also incredibly sad.

"Justin …"

"Just go … he'll be back soon, and he'll expect to find you down in front of the fire all ready to have a nice drink together before you start plowing into the turkey."

A sigh. His father. Also sad. "I just can't let him sit down to dinner on his own, Sunshine."

Who the fuck was he talking to? Did he have some secret lover stashed away? No one had said anything. Not even Albrecht. In fact, both Albrecht and Jorges had made a point of telling Gus how glad they were that he was here because his father was so lonely.

So who the fuck …?

This was bullshit. If his father had some lover tucked away out here in this romantically isolated mansion why the fuck hadn't he introduced him?

Impulsively, Gus decided to put an end to whatever the fuck game his father was playing. Quickly, before he could change his mind, he pushed open the door of the studio.

His father was standing in a really odd pose, almost as if he were embracing someone; but there was no one there.

Gus looked around. He still didn't see anyone.

"I heard voices," he said in confusion. "I wondered who it was."

His father spun around, his face a mix of confusion, alarm and something that looked astonishingly like hope.

"You heard …"

"Brian, he heard me!" No mistaking the tone in that voice that seemed to be coming out of nowhere. That was the sound of pure delight, joy even.

Brian stepped forward, almost as if he were stepping in to protect someone, or something.

"Gus!"

But then his father was elbowed aside as the voice said again, even more jubilantly, "He heard me!"

And just like that, where before there had only been empty space, Gus saw the speaker.

The guy looked a few years younger than Gus himself and at first Gus thought dazedly that this must be why Brian had kept him secret, because he was ashamed of their age difference. But all the time he knew it was more than that. There had been no one in the room when he'd come in except his father and him. No one visible that is. And now there was. He stared at the blond guy.

"He can see me! You can, can't you?" And if he'd been jubilant about being heard, he was absolutely ecstatic over being seen, practically dancing from foot to foot with sheer joy.

Dazedly, Gus nodded.

"Fuck!" His father said, apparently completely flabbergasted. Then again. "Fuck!"

"I think I need to sit down," Gus said, while his mind waged war with his eyes and ears.

"Oh, I'm sorry. If I'd known … I didn't expect … no one but Brian can see me. No one else ever has …"

The blond guy sounded genuinely apologetic now and seemed to be battling with a chair; not so much pushing it as jiggling it across the floor towards him. Brian came out of his stupor then and steered Gus into it. He reached into a cupboard and drew out a bottle of his precious Scotch. "I think you might need a drink, Sonnyboy," he said. "I know I sure as fuck do."

Gus watched bemused as his father poured two glasses of single malt, and then another glass of cola.

"He can't drink alcohol," Brian said, almost absently. "It totally wipes him out."

Gus wondered how it was that his father felt that of all the things that needed explaining here, the place to start was why this … whatever it was … didn't rate a glass of whisky.

Suddenly, that seemed terribly funny and he started to laugh.

*****

"Oh, shit, now he's hysterical. Sunshine, why the fuck did you …?"

"I didn't do anything," the blond guy cut him off. "Not deliberately anyway. I can't help it if he heard me. How could I know? No one else fucking has."

Brian sank into another chair and regarded his son and his ghostly lover.

"So now what?" he asked the world at large.

Justin shrugged. Then he beamed with excitement. "Well, now we can all have Thanksgiving Dinner up here together!"

For a moment Brian stared at him, then, like his son, he began to laugh.

He was cut off by Justin pinching him. "You have to buzz down and tell Albrecht," he said.

Gus, still staring at him in wonder, found himself asking of all ridiculous questions, "Is he always this bossy?"

The blond guy … what kind of a name was fucking 'Sunshine'? … frowned at him, but his father grinned.

"Pretty much," he answered. Then he got up and went over to the comm system and did as he'd been told.

"Now you, quiet!" he said firmly, pointing at the blond, when he'd finished giving his bewildered cook/ housekeeper his instructions. "You have to keep quiet while Albrecht moves the table centerpiece and all that shit up here."

"I'm Justin, by the way," the blond said, more or less ignoring him and holding out his hand to a dubious Gus.

Brian sighed. "Gus … this is Justin. Justin … my son, Gus. Happy now, WASP boy?"

Gus found himself shaking hands, more or less, with what he could only hope was a ghost. He had to hope that because otherwise he'd finally cracked and gone completely and utterly insane; the wagon would come for him and he'd spend the rest of his life in a tight white waist coat. Or were they green nowadays?

Justin smiled at Gus beguilingly, but then, seemingly sensing his lover's deep disquiet, turned to Brian and flung his arms round his neck, hugging him tightly. "I'll be good, I promise," he whispered, just loud enough for Gus to hear.

Brian grunted. "That'll be a fucking first," he sniped. But his eyes were warm and suddenly seemed filled with light as he stroked a hand absently across the blond hair.

Gus watched in awe. His father looked … different … younger and somehow softer and …

For some reason Gus felt that he was seeing his father the way he should have been, the way he'd been meant to be.

It made him desperately sad at first.

But as he sat, sipping his whisky in silence while next door they heard Albrecht and Jorges (helping out inside for once) moving around setting up the table for a Thanksgiving Feast, he watched Brian and the young man … ghost … spirit … whatever Justin was. And it seemed to him that, strange … bizarre … although this was … it was also somehow right. Perfect, even.

His father looked up and caught his eye.

He gave one of those lips pulled in looks and then said quietly, his voice a little anxious, but also resounding with deep echoes of happiness, "We'll talk about it over dinner."

Gus could only nod at him. And wait.

*****

Over dinner his father and Justin took turns in explaining as much as they understood themselves about how they'd come to find each other. Justin shared the story of his early death, and briefly mentioned the long years between. His eyes had clouded during that part, and somehow the room itself had seemed less brightly lit. But Brian's hand had sought his and at its touch, Justin had smiled and the room had brightened again.

Brian talked about finding the house, and being drawn to the studio room by the light and by the feeling in the room. Gus recalled his own sense of the golden glow in the room, and his father had smiled while Justin beamed at him.

"He was meant to be here with us," Justin affirmed happily.

Gus found himself being distracted by the amount of food Justin seemed to be consuming. Surely ghosts didn't have to eat?

Eventually Brian noticed his absorbed gaze moving between Brian's plate and Justin's mouth.

"He doesn't need the food," Brian said. "He's just missed the taste."

"Mmmm," Justin agreed, mouth full, but humming happily.

"I don't usually let them serve this kind of shit," Brian said, eyeing the plate piled high with potatoes and gravy and stuffing along with the turkey and green bean salad and some kind of sinfully delicious purée of cauliflower and blue cheese.

Justin swallowed, sipped his cola and said blissfully, "I haven't tasted a meal like this for over thirty years."

Gus smiled at him in turn and said, "It is pretty good. Dad, aren't you going to eat anything?"

Brian shrugged, but let Justin feed him some turkey and a little potato.

"He doesn't eat enough to keep a sparrow alive," Justin complained.

"Why don't you just ask for an extra plate?" Gus asked. "Or, you know, get one and some cutlery and stash it up here if you do this a lot."

They both stared at him. Then Justin giggled and looked at Brian.

"Okay, okay," his lover responded. "Tomorrow I'll get some extra fucking stuff for you to eat off."

"He just likes me sharing his plate," Justin said, giving Brian a little nudge.

It was probably at that point that the situation really penetrated with Gus. His father wasn't just sharing a house, and some food, with a ghost. These two were clearly and unmistakably … involved. They were lovers.

Remembering how it had felt to both touch and not touch Justin's hand, Gus's mind steered away from the physical implications of that and tried to concern itself with the emotional. He felt that he should be scared, that he should be desperately worried about his father's state of mind. Hell! He should be worried about his own state of mind that he was even thinking this stuff.

But once more, as he started on the pecan and walnut pie that followed the turkey and grinned at Justin's ecstatic purrs of appreciation, he found himself surprisingly ready to accept the situation.

If his father was totally delusional, then so was Gus. Because he was sitting having dinner and an extended conversation with someone who wasn't really, in the physical sense, quite there; and yet he was. Justin's hand moved the spoonful of pie and cream to his mouth, he pushed the food inside and it disappeared. It didn't drop down to the carpet or reappear on the spoon, it simply vanished into Justin's mouth in the same way it was vanishing into his own. And when Brian put his hand over Justin's at one point when they were talking about Justin's family, Gus saw Justin's hand turn over to meet it, and the two sets of fingers intertwine.

As far as he could tell, while Justin might not be, in one sense, entirely human … or anyway alive, he was in all the ways that count definitely real and definitely here.

And, which was really the only thing that counted for Gus, his being here clearly made his father very happy.

So Gus decided that his rational mind that was still trying to bitch away about this "situation" could go fuck itself. His life had been ruled for far too long by standards of strict rationality and it had never brought him anything but misery. It was more than time for a new outlook.

"So what do you think, Sonnyboy?" his father asked at last as they sat sipping the coffee Brian had laced with liqueurs – well for him and Gus anyway.

"I think … I think I'd like to be a landscape gardener," Gus heard himself respond.

Justin, sensing the absolute acceptance in the apparent non sequitur, laughed, the sound a peal of pure happiness; and after a moment his father grinned and responded.

"Well, you can take this place on for a start, that should keep you busy for the next six months or so at least."

He raised his cup in salute and while the fire crackled and outside the snow fell softly, here in the warmth and the light, the three members of this newly formed little family sat and toasted each other and their shared future. And each, in their own inner heart of hearts, gave deep and sincere thanks to whatever or whoever had brought them here together.


	3. In the Bleak Mid-Winter: Love's Not Time's Fool 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A somewhat unusual Valentine's Day fic.
> 
> It's set 10 years after the second segment and - be warned - at the very beginning, Brian has just died. I think it only fair to say that.
> 
> It's still, I believe, quite ridiculously romantic. And, given that "Brian" and "romance" are always an unlikely mix, it even has moments that you might find amusing.

Gus stood in the small dining room that had echoed so often with laughter, staring blindly at the table already set for the Valentine's Dinner that was never going to happen now. Dimly he was aware of the sound of Justin's weeping coming from the master bedroom across the hallway. He tried to gather his courage to go in and try to comfort him; there was no one else to do it now after all, and he knew his father would expect it of him. But he needed a moment to collect himself, to get past his own grief and bitter disappointment.

Both he and Brian had been so sure that in death Brian's spirit would join his young lover's, and that they would either "move on" together (whatever the fuck that meant) or they'd both … well, haunt the place they'd shared for the last ten years in their, to say the least of it, unconventional relationship.

But just over an hour ago Brian's worn out body had finally lost the fierce battle he'd been fighting against the cancer that had invaded most of his major organs; and since then … nothing. Justin was inconsolable, desperately fearing being left alone himself, and even more fearful that Brian was facing the same horrible non-life that he himself had once experienced, wandering endlessly though a featureless dim grey cloud – devoid of all warmth and form, aware only of soul deep loneliness. Gus knew that Justin would have thrown himself headlong back into that void if it would have saved Brian from that fate. But as things were …

Gus's fingers traced the rim of the ice bucket which was waiting in vain now for the sparkling apple juice that was as close as Justin could get to drinking champagne without, as his father had once said, totally wiping himself out. The fact that Justin's spirit-body was totally unable to process alcohol had been a constant source of amusement to Brian.

Gus sighed. His father had been so determined to hold out at least until Valentine's Day, wanting to share one more special meal with his beloved Sunshine.

But he was gone now, and deeply as Gus was grieving his loss, he knew that Justin was grieving even more, and there was only Gus who could offer any form of comfort.

Sighing, he walked back to his father's room and entered quietly. Justin was lying spread across his father's body, still weeping forlornly. Gus knew he was going to have to call the doctor and have the body moved, but he had to let Justin have some time to express his grief before even Brian's lifeless body was taken away to places he could not follow.

Justin must have heard him enter, because he finally dragged himself up and came towards him.

"I'm sorry, Gus," he said. "I know you lost him too."

Wordlessly, they clung together in the strange not-quite-embrace that was all their different corporeal states would allow them.

Gus brushed the hair back from the face that never aged, and kissed the not quite there forehead.

"I need to call the doc," he said.

Justin moaned softly, a wounded animal sound, but nodded. "I know."

"We're going to have the wake he planned," Gus affirmed.

Justin nodded again, for Gus's sake valiantly fighting against more tears.

Brian had insisted on planning his own wake, wanting a "good Irish send off" and demanding that it take place in the exercise room immediately under Justin's studio. It would mean that Justin could at least vaguely "be there" although even Gus would have difficulty seeing him.

Ten years ago, the wake would probably have been just Gus plus Albrecht and Jorge, Brian's long time servants. Well, unless Gus had let his mothers know, but he wouldn't have wanted even then to deal with Lindsay's hysterics and Mel's bitter sniping. Maybe Ted and Emmett would have come, if they'd been able to, and perhaps some people from his business life. But there would have been pitifully few people there who really loved him.

But things were different now. Gus had re-married five years ago, and Leisha his wife had adored Brian. From day one she had seen through all his bluster and astringency to the huge heart hidden behind that formidable exterior. And from their very first meeting, Brian had intuitively recognized the deep love she felt for his son, and that had been all he'd needed to admit her to the select few he trusted with his own heart. She was here now, of course, over in "their" wing looking after the kids, Josh and Julia, Brian's grand children. Josh was four going on forty, a whimsical little boy who had flashes of a maturity way beyond his years, while Julia had just turned one. She'd been a Christmas baby, arriving on Christmas Eve. She'd been born right here in the house and her arrival had made that Christmas even more magical than usual. The two little ones had from their birth been able to wind their grandfather round their pudgy little fingers, and they in turn had loved him with all their passionate young hearts. The thought of dealing with his family's grief added to Gus's feelings of despair.

If only his fucking father had … well, appeared. Like he should have, right after he'd died. He'd expected to, Gus knew. Brian might not have believed in much, but he'd firmly believed that he and Justin were so united that their reunion in the spirit world Justin inhabited was simply inevitable. But he'd died a while ago, just as the daylight seeped over the horizon on a cold grey Valentine's Day in fact, and still neither Gus nor Justin had seen any sign of his presence.

So now it was time to accept that, and get on with the things that needed to be done. Giving Justin one last hug, Gus snapped his fingers to activate the telcom voice-remote and made the call that he and Justin were both dreading. From this point on, Brian's body would no longer belong in any sense to them, and they both feared that when it was taken from them any chance of Brian's spirit joining them would disappear with it.

After he swiped to "off" on the telcom, Justin said, "I'm okay, now. You'd better go talk to Leisha and see how she and the kids are doing."

Gus nodded. He knew it wasn't true. He knew Justin was a long way from being okay. And for himself, he was terrified that if he let Justin out of his sight, if he left this part of the house where Justin "lived" that when he returned Justin's spirit also would have left. He didn't think he could handle losing his father and his brother on the same day. He supposed there was something totally weird about regarding his father's ghost lover as some kind of brother. But Justin was … or had been … or at least looked … much younger than Gus himself, so it was hard to think of him as a parent figure, but they'd still become very close over the years, joining in teasing Brian over some of his more outrageous vanities and sharing a creative gift based on their differing fascination with form and color.

Justin expressed his gift on canvas and paper, Gus in his extraordinary garden designs. When he'd first arrived at his father's house he'd blurted out his desire to become a landscape gardener and Brian in his typically understated but rock solid fashion, had offered his unwavering support. So Gus had gone back to school and while studying he'd tried out his growing expertise on the extensive gardens around the house. Justin had even been drawn into leaving the house to explore them and offer his advice. He'd never attempted to go past the gate, but they'd learned that although even Brian couldn't see him outside a narrow boundary based around his studio, Justin could safely wander all across the grounds. He and Gus had had many long discussions about color combinations and layouts and it had finally been Justin's guidance which had led to the installation of the amazing water feature which was one of the garden's highlights.

Working together in this way, they'd become very close quite apart from their relationships to Brian; so Gus really did regard his father's ghostly lover as a brother-figure.

It nearly broke his heart to leave Justin in his distress, but he did need to speak to his wife and try to offer comfort to his children who would be bewildered and upset, he knew, at the loss of their beloved "Ganpa".

To both their disappointments, Leisha had never quite been able to see Justin, but she knew about him. She'd heard his voice almost from the first, and had sometimes had the feeling that there was someone or something just out of reach of her sight in Brian's wing of the house. At first she'd been understandably both skeptical and nervous, but Brian had sat her down and explained how it was. He hadn't tried to persuade her of Justin's existence, just told her the story of how he'd met a sad young artist who turned out to be some kind of ghost.

She'd discussed it later with Gus, and had realized that for both father and son, the fact that Justin wasn't physically alive had become almost irrelevant; somehow in some way he existed, and that existence formed part of her future husband's dearly loved little family.

Gus hadn't actually proposed at that point, but Leisha had pegged him as her future husband the day that a shabby shambling young man had dropped a flower pot onto her toes at the garden center. He'd been disarmingly apologetic and embarrassed, and she'd looked into the deep brown eyes that held an astonishing glimmer of green in their depths and had fallen in love on the spot. They'd had coffee together and he'd told her about the landscaping course he was taking. She'd put him down as someone who maybe had never had the chance to go to college but was now doing his best to get qualifications so he could make a reasonable living at the craft he clearly loved. It wasn't until he'd taken her to meet his father that she'd realized he could have just played at being a garden designer, safe in the knowledge that he would never actually need to earn a living. The knowledge that such a thing wouldn't have occurred to her Gus, that he wasn't a spoilt rich boy but a man who was determined to find his own way in the world made her love him even more. Gus had found the third person in his life (if you counted Justin as a person, which Gus certainly did) who would love and support him unconditionally.

So she and Gus had set up home in their own wing of the house, and when she visited Brian's rooms she always said, "Hi, Justin!" as if she really could see him, which made Justin feel acknowledged in a very particular way that made him (and therefore both Brian and Gus) feel incredibly happy. And she'd never for one moment made Gus feel like she thought he and his father might be slightly crazy.

"My mother used to have pre-cognitive dreams," she'd told him. "She'd dream things about us and then they'd happen exactly like she'd dreamed them – right down to the tiny details. My grandmother read the Tarot and told me when I was in my teens that the Lovers was my card because it had a garden as a background and my true love would bring me to live in the most beautiful garden. Who am I to say your father isn't living with some kind of spirit? It's obviously a really good one, because I've never come across such a happy-feeling house in my life."

But the house didn’t feel happy right now.

Gus, safe in his wife's arms, shed a few tears and then they both wiped their faces and tried to explain to the children who were facing their first loss, that Ganpa loved them, would always love them, but that he'd still had to leave them.

Feeling emotionally exhausted, Gus was happy to leave the domestic side of organizing the wake to his wife. He knew that both Albrecht and Jorge would be sincerely sad themselves at his father's death, and he just couldn't face any more grief right then.

He made the calls that he needed to make, and dealt with the doctor when he arrived, grateful that Justin, after placing one last kiss on Brian's cold forehead, vanished into his studio while the doctor made his last examination, and later when they took the body away. Brian had sought, and received, dispensation from the city to be buried in the grounds of the house. He'd hovered over Gus while he'd designed a quiet corner to be his last resting place. Gus knew he'd been so insistent on it because he hadn't been able to bear the thought of leaving the one place where Justin in some way existed.

By the time he'd done, word had already spread and he had to divert the telcom to Brian's business head quarters, leaving the staff there to deal with all inquiries and well wishers. He called Ted and Emmett himself though. He knew that they were the only friends his father recognized and that Brian had valued their friendship, even though they rarely saw each other. They were deeply sympathetic and both said that they would try to get there for the funeral. Emmett had laughed a little when Gus had told him that Brian had wanted an old fashioned Irish wake.

"Oh, honey, you just leave all that to me. I'll let everyone know that Emmy-Lou's Do's will be arranging it all. It's the least I can do for my old friend."

That had lifted a huge weight from Gus, who knew Leisha hated all those kind of arrangements as much as he did. They'd both been dreading the need to make decisions on stuff like what food to serve and whether there should be tea as well as coffee. With Emmett in charge, he knew they had nothing to worry about. Emmy-Lou's Do's had organized their wedding and it had been wonderful. They'd had it right here at the house, of course, so Justin could "be there", which meant that Emmett knew the place and would know just what was needed.

There was one more call that he needed to make.

Very early on in their relationship, Brian had "friended" Justin's sister Molly on various social networks, using information Justin fed him to pose as an old family friend. Over the years, urged on by Justin, they'd chatted online a little, and finally Brian had asked her and her family out to the house for a summer barbeque. Justin had been ecstatic to see his sister, even if she was totally unaware of his existence, and she'd seemed to enjoy the visit as well. They'd all come back a few times since then – at least once a year for the last few years. He knew that it would mean a lot to Justin if she would come to the funeral.

So Gus steeled himself to make this last call.

Then he could go back and check on Justin.

Just as he was ending the call, Leisha came in and sank down onto the couch beside him.

"Emmett called on my cellcom," she said. "Isn't he wonderful?"

Gus smiled at her weakly. "Where are the kids?" he asked.

"Jorge has taken them down to the store," she said. "Then they're going to get a hot chocolate at the little cafe. I didn't want to risk them being around when …"

She stopped, and he nodded. He'd found it almost unbearable himself to watch his father being taken from the house.

"Albrecht asked me what he should do about the Valentine's dinner," she went on. "I told him …" she took a steadying breath and continued, "I told him to leave the table set. That we might still use it for dinner."

Gus shook his head. "Honey, I don't think …"

She tilted her head at him. "I know you haven't … well, seen or heard him yet," she said. "But he believed he'd find Justin and I can't imagine anything stopping Brian Kinney from getting anything he wanted as much as he wanted that. So I believe it too. I believe in him!" she finished, a slightly defiant note in her voice.

Gus stared at her … at this amazing, beautiful woman who somehow, even though she'd never seen Justin, never felt the non-touch of his hand, somehow had more faith even than he did in the power of his father's lover for the young artist.

He took a deep breath and nodded. "You're right," he said. "Tell them they should serve up the meal just like we planned."

They sat for a little while in silence, drawing strength and comfort from each other, but when they heard the car pulling into the drive, Leisha stood. "I'll look after the kids, you need to go look after Justin."

Gus made his way slowly to the studio room where today the usual sunshine glow was absent, leaving the room dull and grey. Outside, it had become bitterly cold, but there was no snow, just a dreary biting sleet beating at the windows.

Justin had smiled at him wanly in greeting, and they'd sat for a while in silence, feeling for the first time awkward around each other, until Gus had suggested that Justin start a new painting, one for his father. He hoped that his friend would find some solace in expressing his grief in his art. So he put a new canvas on the easel and Justin half-heartedly started to swirl his brush across it. Gradually, though, Justin became lost in the painting and Gus found himself staring, as he often did, trying to force his brain to see something of Justin's work, but not surprised when to him the canvas stayed completely pristine.

They were both so absorbed that the interruption when it came was even more startling than it might otherwise have been.

"Fucking finally!" his father's voice said. "I can finally see what the fuck I've been shelling out money on paint for all these fucking years!"

Gus jerked his head around and for a moment could see nothing.

But he didn't need Justin's joyful, "Brian!" to tell him that his father truly was, in some sense at least, back with them, because the room was now filled with a glow so bright that he found himself blinking. As his eyes cleared, he saw Justin, on tiptoe, his arms outstretched, clearly embracing someone; and then, just like that, his father was there. At least, Gus supposed it was his father. But not as he had known him. Not as he remembered him from these last ten years, anyway. This man was … he was young … younger than Gus himself, probably.

But Justin seemed to have no doubt as to who it was, and Gus remembered Justin telling him more than once that he hadn't seen Brian as an old man. "He's not as young as me, but he's still young," Justin had said. "And he's fucking hot!"

Gus had always told him to shut up then and they'd inevitably wound up laughing, but looking at the figure so firmly clasped in Justin's arms now, he realized that this was how Justin had always seen his lover.

He was trying to slip unobtrusively from the room, leaving them to their reunion, when Justin pulled back suddenly and said waspishly, "Where the fuck have you been?"

He punched at Brian's shoulder as he said it and Gus watched as Brian grabbed his hands so Justin couldn't punch him again.

"Sunshine you would not fucking believe what I've been through today so don't fucking start with me."

"You scared me," Justin said in a voice so soft Gus hardly heard it, but carrying even in its softness the absolute terror the young artist had been feeling.

Gus slipped out of the room as his father stroked the beautiful tear-streaked face. "I told you I'd find you. I promised."

Gus stood on the landing for a long moment, collecting himself.

Then he went to tell Leisha that she'd been right not to cancel the Valentine's Day dinner.

*****

"So where were you?" Justin demanded some time later. (Time that they'd spent discovering the joys of finally being on the same plane of existence. Brian felt that if he'd known it was going to be so good to fuck Justin like this, he would have offed himself years ago, but didn't voice the opinion, knowing it would set his young lover off on some kind of rant.)

Brian sighed and tried to settle more comfortably on the bed. He hadn't had Justin's experience in interacting with the physical realm and was finding it more than a little difficult to adjust to that side of his new existence.

"I was in the other fucking house, trying to deal with that pair of drama queens."

Justin sat up.

"The other house? You met them? Us? Are they really us?"

Brian shrugged. "Well, they look like us, I guess," he acknowledged. "At least … that Justin is older but he'd still you, I suppose. But, fuck!"

"What happened?" Justin asked. "What are they like? Brian, fucking tell me!"

Brian struggled to get himself to a position that was upright relative to the bed.

"Well, Sunshine, the problem is that that Brian died too … at the same time, I guess."

Justin got it immediately. "But that Justin is still alive. And they didn't know that they … well, that they might … "

"Yeah," Brian bit out abruptly. Then he sighed again. "Between that Brian fucking freaking out because he didn't want to leave his widdle Sunshine all alone, and that Justin crying so fucking much he nearly flooded the bedroom; not to mention having fucking hysterics when the guys from the morgue came to take the body …"

"So what did you do?" Justin asked, enthralled. "Can I help? How did you get there?"

Brian struggled off the bed, which distracted Justin a little. "Brian, you don't do it like that, you just think of where you want to be, or how you want to be, and then you are," he instructed, only to have his partner instantly disappear.

"Brian!" he half-screamed.

"Don't have a fucking cow, I just went to get a fucking drink but I can't pick up the bottle properly," Brian announced with a pout, reappearing as abruptly as he'd left.

"And you can't drink," Justin informed him. "You know what happens to me if I try to drink alcohol."

Brian glared at him, appalled.

Justin shrugged and moved past him.

"Come and sit in the studio and I'll get you a glass of water or something."

"Can't fucking drink?" Brian seemed stuck on the horrendous concept.

Justin laughed at him. "The good news is you can eat whatever you like without having to worry about the calories or cholesterol," he said consolingly.

Brian wasn't sure it was any kind of trade off, although speaking of eating …

They settled onto the chaise longue in the studio and spent a little while exploring the intricacies of kissing and sucking in this new common state of being.

Both of them liked it. A lot.

"So what happened?" Justin prompted eventually. "Tell me everything."

"Well, there was no fucking white light or any of that shit. I just … woke up, kind of. And he was there – that other Brian – fucking going nuts about who the fuck was I and all that shit. Then he ran out of the room and I followed him and we … turned a corner or something … and then we were in that other house and that Justin was sobbing …"

His arms tightened round his young lover, knowing that it wouldn't have been just that other Justin who'd been weeping inconsolably. "I’m sorry I left you. It just happened. And then it took a while to find the way back."

Justin nodded, rubbing his face against Brian's hand. It didn't matter now. Nothing mattered now except that they were together.

"So what did you do with them?"

"Well, I finally got the big drama queen to calm down enough to explain things to him. As well as I fucking could, anyway. Who could really explain this shit?"

Justin nodded.

"Then he managed to somehow kind of touch his Justin. I guess it was really like a ghost touch … like it was with us, at first."

Justin smiled, remembering the ghost touch of Brian's hand on his hair that first time. Or the non-ghost touch, he supposed.

"So when the little twat finally stopped freaking out, he kind of grabbed Brian's hand like he really knew he was there and I left them to it."

Justin gave a sentimental little sigh. Then a deeper one. "It's going to be harder for them," he said.

"I don't know, it's getting fairly hard now," Brian observed, bucking his hips against his partner's thigh.

"Brian!" Justin couldn't help giggling, but did his best to keep them on track, for just a little while longer, anyway. "It's going to be more difficult. We'd never been together before … you know."

"Before you died," Brian said bluntly.

"Yeah." Justin replied quietly, letting his head rest on Brian's shoulder, letting himself regret for a moment all the years they hadn't had together while they were both alive. "So you know … that thing we had once we did get together … that was amazing for us, but it won't be the same for them as what they had before."

Brian nodded, kissing his lover's neck gently. "I know … but you know what, Sunshine?"

"What?"

"I'd rather have what we had than what they had."

"Seriously?" Justin skewed around to look into his face. "Why?"

Brian sighed. "Because I know myself," he said at last. "Because I know that I would have fought tooth and fucking talon to avoid letting myself get caught into any fucking "relationship" bullshit. I would have put you through Hell."

He sighed again. He hated talking about this shit.

"But this way … when you finally came along … it was like a fucking miracle, and I knew that right from the beginning. Right from the first moment I walked into this room, months before I even knew you were here, I knew I'd found something amazing and I was going to do everything I could to hold onto it."

Justin gasped, and hugged him tightly.

"Me, too," he said damply. "From the moment you walked into the house."

They experimented some more.

A while later, he sat up a little and said thoughtfully, "But you know, it wouldn't just have been you that fucked things up. I bet I did too. I was so fucking young back then … back before …"

He thought for a moment, considering the past. "And you know before the whole "gay" thing happened … I mean before the shit hit the fan about that … I'd been so fucking spoiled. I was smart, so I got good grades pretty easily. I wasn't exactly a troll, or weird looking or anything, so before all that shit I didn't get picked on a lot, and my parents were pretty well off so I had all the latest stuff – computers and games and phones and shit. I'd never really had to work or struggle for anything in my life till I came out."

Brian ran a hand through his hair, reveling in actually being able to feel the strands between his fingers.

"You made up for it."

Justin jerked a nod of acknowledgement, but went on, "But I bet I gave you shit. If I'd decided that I wanted to be with you, I would have totally stalked you and stuff. Whether you wanted it or not. I just would have been sure I could make you want me."

Brian gave him one of the slight shy smiles that always thrilled Justin's heart.

"Sounds about right," he said softly.

Justin beamed at him.

Then he figured his man deserved a reward, and he knew just how to give it to him.

"Have you looked in the mirror lately?" he asked.

Brian stared at him for a moment, and then suddenly found himself standing in front of his bedroom mirror.

What he saw made him laugh out loud in astonished joy.

"What the fuck?" he turned from side to side to admire his reflection and then peered closely at the refection of his face.

"I'm fucking hot!" he exclaimed ecstatically.

"Haven't I been telling you that forever?" Justin replied from the doorway.

Brian spun round and dived at him. He swung the young blond over his shoulder and headed for the bed, memories of how much stamina he'd had at thirty coming back to him. He wondered if you got a sore dick from fucking too much on this plane or whatever the fuck it was. Or if Justin could get a sore ass. He guessed they were about to find out.

*****

Days later, after Leisha had found that, probably due to her very real link to her father in law, she too could now see and hear both Brian and Justin; after the Valentine's Day dinner that the two couples had shared; after Gus had watched in something like shock while his father devoured food that he once would never have allowed anywhere near his mouth; after the wake and the funeral; after the kids' tears had dried once they were allowed to spend a little time in the studio room; after Josh had completely dumb-founded both his parents by asking, "How come Ganpa looks so young now?"; after all those things, Brian and Gus finally found a little quiet time to sit together and talk.

"I thought you might both go," Gus said. "I thought that maybe once you … once you died, once you were gone, Justin wouldn't be here anymore either."

He found the words hard to say. Losing one parent might be regarded as unfortunate losing his father and his brother in one stroke … he'd been afraid he couldn't have coped with that."

He looked up to find his father regarding him with one of the lips pulled in looks that Gus had learned meant he was trying to find the words to say something difficult to say or difficult to hear.

"What?" he asked.

Brian patted his knee, the kind of ghost touch Gus had long associated with Justin.

"I think we will, Sonnyboy."

"But … when?"

Brian paused for a moment. "I think we're still here because of him … the other Justin," he said.

Gus stared at him.

That made sense.

It made horrible, sad, wonderful sense.

"You think that when he … when he dies …"

Brian nodded. "You know we've been spending time with them both," he said. "We're getting pretty good at getting to that house and back again and Sunshine's determined to try to help them as much as we can."

It was Gus's turn to nod.

"We've talked about it. I think … we all think … that something went wrong somewhere. That Justin wasn't meant to die so young. We think that things are kind of working themselves back to how they should have been, and that when we're all together …"

"You'll go."

It wasn't a question.

Brian patted his knee again. Then he stood and moved over to the computer.

"If he goes slow, we'll have time to say goodbye," he said. "But who knows? Shit happens. It could be really quick."

After a couple of fumbles, he managed to switch the system on and looked suitably smug at his success.

"We're trying to put some stuff onto the system for you. Don't know if it will work, but if we do just fucking disappear, try and find it."

He turned to give a would-be glare at his son. "And don't fucking try to find it before then," he ordered.

Gus sighed.

"Promise me, Gus."

Their eyes met and finally Gus nodded. "Okay. I promise. No fucking spoilers."

Brian gave a soft huff of laughter and reached for his son. The two, so much alike, clung together tightly.

Gus got ready to leave; he knew that even in his transformed state his father found emotional scenes as difficult as he always had, but Brian surprised him by sitting down again.

"I told Justin I thought I was luckier than that other fuckwit who lives over there." He jerked his head in the direction of what Gus supposed was meant to indicate that other house.

"I think I was luckier where he was concerned, and I know I was fucking luckier with you."

Gus raised an eyebrow in a pure Kinney gesture.

Brian nodded in affirmation of what he was saying. "I know he got to spend more time with that Gus when you were a kid, all that stuff."

Gus fought back tears. This was still very much a sore topic with him. He'd never forgiven either of his mothers for the games they'd played using him and his father as pawns and now barely spoke to them. Neither of them had never even seen his daughter.

Brian reached out and touched his hand. "Sonnyboy, he might have had that, but he didn't have what I've had these last ten years. That Gus is married to Leisha, just like you, and they have Josh and Julia, but he lives in Vancouver. Brian sees them maybe once or twice a year for a few days."

That gave Gus pause for thought. These last ten years, even the time before he'd met Leisha, had been the happiest of his life. He supposed he could be happy with Leisha no matter where they lived, but living here, sharing his life so intimately with his father, that had healed deep deep hurts in both of them.

"I'd rather have had these last ten years with you than all the rest of the time that Brian had with his son."

Gus felt tears sting his eyes once more, but smiled through them at his father and nodded back at him.

"Me too," he said.

And knew it to be absolute truth.

His childhood had been difficult and he'd missed out on holidays and visits with his father. But even with those times, the rest would still have been pretty shitty. And that other Gus had never had the chance to know his father the way Gus knew Brian, not just as a father, but as a friend.

"That's my Sonnyboy," Brian said proudly, and any lingering regrets for those lost years vanished in the flood of love and gratitude Gus felt then.

He wondered if that other Gus could "see" his father, now that he was dead. Probably not, he figured. And even if he could, he'd probably just think he was going crazy.

But thinking that put him in mind of how that Gus must be feeling.

"Dad," he said. "Do me a favor. When you're there … in the other house … if you get a chance to do anything to help that Gus …"

He gave his father a watery smile. "I know they're probably not as close as us. But I know that Gus loved his Dad too, and he'll be hurting right now."

He stood. It was time to get back to Leisha and share with her the essence of this conversation.

His father stood also, still a little awkwardly, and to Gus's surprise reached out and caressed his face, in a gesture usually reserved for Justin.

"I'll do whatever I can Sonnyboy." He smiled. "I fucking love you."

They hugged and Gus went back to "real life", a little saddened at the thought that one day he'd lose even his father and Justin's ghostly presence; but somehow reassured too, that things were the way they were meant to be.

****

Some people might have wondered why Gus never changed anything in his father's rooms. The only thing that changed was that he and Leisha usually had their evening meal in the small dining room, just as his father had done every evening. But aside from themselves and Albrecht and Jorge, who never seemed to query it, no one ever went into that wing.

Only Josh and Julia liked to escape there occasionally.

"It's pwetty," Julia said.

"It's always sunny here," Josh affirmed.

There was no indication that either of them saw any more of Brian or of Justin than that one glimpse Josh had had the day of the wake, and Brian and Justin themselves said they didn't think the kids could see them, but they both seemed happy to curl up with a book or a favorite toy so eventually Gus and Leisha accepted it and didn't try to interfere.

But as time goes, it wasn't all that long till the light in the studio room faded from its usual golden glow and neither Brian nor Justin were anywhere to be found.

Gus found that very hard at first, and it was a few days before he could bring himself to open the system and try to find the file his father had left for him.

It wasn't really that hard to find. It was locked onto that particular outlet so it couldn't be opened from any other room, but it was labeled clearly "For Gus".

When he opened it, he found a single document and hundreds of image files.

The document was brief.

 

"Hey Sonnyboy, guess we've fucking passed on or whatever the shit. Don't feel too bad about that. You know that you're with the one you're meant to be with and so am I.

Justin says to tell you he loves you and don't forget that he wants lots of color planted among those green grasses round the fucking headstone. Shit, hang on.

Gus … it's Justin … you know we talked about a cottage garden thing …

Literally over my dead body. Don't you fucking …

Ignore your father … it should have daffodils, yellow tulips and maybe a couple of red camellias and phlox and …

Yeah, yeah.

You do what you fucking want with it, Sonnyboy, it's really yours now.

I just wanted to say, in case I never managed to fucking do it before, I am so fucking glad you came to see me and gave me a chance to finally man up and be some kind of fucking father. I'm sorry I didn't fight harder for you when you were a kid, but like I told you once, I wouldn't have traded a minute of these last few years for all the lifetime before it. I hope that maybe on day you'll forgive me for being such a pussy and letting them take you away from me. I honestly thought I was doing the right thing, but you know what they say about fucking good intentions.

I love you, Gus. You are the best thing I ever did with my life and I am so fucking proud of you. Thank you for being my son, and letting me share time your wife and your kids. Give them all hugs for me and tell them that I love them, that we both do.

Bye, Sonnyboy.

Enjoy the other shit we've put in here. Just hope you can fucking see it."

 

When Gus had blinked away the tears, he finally managed to start opening the other files.

What he found there astonished him.

Somehow, by some miracle, they'd managed to find a way to capture images of Justin's art work.

He looked through image after image – paintings, drawings, charcoal sketches of his father, of him and his father, of Brian with Josh and then with Josh and Julia, some of him with Brian, Leisha and the kids. A few of just Brian and Justin. And one or two that included all six of them … their crazy, beautiful amazing family.

Gus put his head down on the desk and cried for sorrow and for love and for sheer thankfulness that by some weird-assed cosmic twist of fate he'd been given this amazing experience at the core of his life.

Then he went to find his wife and share the images with her.

He knew she'd love them.

And he hoped that wherever they were, his father and Justin knew how much their final gift had meant to him.

*****

They did.

They also knew, as Gus could not, that things were falling back into cosmic harmony.

The other Gus, Leisha and the kids had left Vancouver. They'd just moved into the "other" house.

 

It was, after all, the place where the Taylor-Kinney family had always been meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in why Justin mentions those particular flowers in the doc they left for Gus, he might have been influenced by their "meaning".
> 
> Daffodil - new beginnings
> 
> Yellow tulip - there is sunshine in your smile
> 
> Red Camellia - you're a flame in my heart
> 
> Phlox - our souls are united

**Author's Note:**

> For those who don't recognise where the trilogy's title is from, it's Shakespeare's sonnet 116.
> 
> I've often thought that there was something in there that makes me think of Brian and Justin.
> 
>  
> 
>  _Let me not to the marriage of true minds_  
>  _Admit impediments. Love is not love_  
>  _Which alters when it alteration finds,_  
>  _Or bends with the remover to remove:_  
>  _O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark_ ,  
>  _That looks on tempests and is never shaken;_  
>  _It is the star to every wandering bark,_  
>  _Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken._  
>  _Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks_  
>  _Within his bending sickle's compass come;_  
>  _Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,_  
>  _But bears it out even to the edge of doom._  
>  _If this be error and upon me proved,_  
>  _I never writ, nor no man ever loved._


End file.
